I dislike the use of labels such as ‘alternative’ or ‘natural’ as to me they miss the point and seem to be usually emotive marketing tools rather than as meaningful terms.

Many, if not most, evidence-based remedies are found in natural sources but they are usually manufactured rather than extracted for a range of reasons including purity, standardizing the dose, cost-effectiveness, to provide appropriate “delivery” of the active ingredient(s) to your body and so on.

Whether a product is manufactured or “natural” or “alternative” isn’t really of the essence. Whether they have been demonstrated to work as claimed (and to what extent) matters, as does assurance of the consistency of the product (standards for manufacturing, etc.) and how they are administered (qualifications and regulations). The system for medical treatment isn’t there to beat down on “alternatives”, it’s there to ensure what is done is meaningful.

I agree with your comment about about claims and labeling. I have been hoping to write about that, too, but I have a day job…!

When you wrote “In one particular instance we had one large NZ company threaten to take us to court, for as far as they were concerned they had contracted us to provide a positive claim for their product, not to assay it in the most clinically relavent assays available.” I was reminded me of a phrase that has been echoing around those writing about the Simon Singh case (or words to the effect of what these people are writing): “evidence, not lawyers, please”.