I bought my bottle of echinacea with the same idiot naiveté that drives most people to alternative medicine. It's natural, so how bad can it be? Subtext: it's harmless. It's like vitamins. La dee da. It might not make me better, but it can't hurt, right?

Ha!

A few hours after my second dose of echinacea, I started itching. Then I started swelling. Then random bits of me started to hurt. My lips had swelled to Steven Tyler-esque proportions and I was looking around for the other 98 Red Balloons. By the time I got to the doctors' office, it hurt to walk. "Hey," I thought, "why am I breathing funny?"

It's called anaphylactic shock, folks, and it can kill you. Turns out this reaction isn't uncommon for those of us with seasonal allergies. Of course, I'm a dink for not researching the pills before popping them. But a warning label would have been nice, too.

Nothing Says "Antidepressant" Like an Unwanted Pregnancy

At least I didn't play around with the herbal happy-drug St. John's wort. According to a study published in a scientific journal -- and all but ignored by the mainstream media -- the stuff can reduce the effectiveness of birth control pills by up to 50 percent.

In case you missed it: 50 percent. You might as well be using the rhythm method.

Herbal remedies can also mess with cancer patients' radiation treatments or cause bleeding and clotting problems for surgery patients. The list of hazards goes on and on. And you won't know about any potential risks unless you do your homework, because the companies bottling the stuff sure won't tell you.

Oranges, Bananas, and a Dash of Herbal Smack

Pill bottles aren't the only places I'd like to see warning labels. Check out those earthy-crunchy juicemakers and smoothie joints that add herbal remedies to their products with abandon. Fresh Samantha, for example, makes juices containing echinacea ("we hope you too will find it effective in keeping Mr. Cold at bay"), St. John's wort, Ginkgo Biloba and other herbal nonsense. Granted, the herbs come in small doses. But putting medicine in juice implies that it's not medicine. It's in juice! It's just like Vitamin C!