Right, I agree with you about that, but believe you’re using too broad a brush here, I don’t know if that was clear.
There’s a huge difference between ineffective herbal mixtures that are being predatorily advertised to people with chronic illnesses and this, imo. This is more akin to your dentist telling you to rinse with homemade saline solution if you can’t afford mouthwash- it’s a scientifically well established disinfectant, just made at home.
I think it’s wonderful that Brazil’s researching folk cures, too often they’re unresearched by the academic community, even though they’ve been in some cases (not all) used effectively for centuries. I appreciate you wanting to wait until there’s been rigorous academic testing, and I do think that’s the right thing to do, if it’s something that you can do. If you’re in a situation where you don’t have that option, it’s not as easy, in my opinion. Especially because there’s a huge backlog of traditional remedies to test, and not all governments are so open to testing them at all.
But Clarence Thomas accepted gifts from people who then argued in front of the Supreme Court without recusing himself without facing any consequences, so is there anything to stop it?