D., I pulled out the herbal volume of the PDR and I pulled out the Varro Tyler texts. Except for the German Monographs there aren't supposed to be any more ACCURATE references for herbal things. There is squat on Stevia. Ela, did you find an affordable way to gain access to a copy of the German Monographs? If so, could you check on Stevia for us all? Anyway, last I read in periodicals (and it tallies with the dearth of info on Stevia) is that ***even safety information is lacking*** for the herb, and that ***any potential benefits are without study***. On WHAT do you base your claim that Stevia is good for the immune system? Using what mechanism? Remember that some herbal things which actually are known to have immune system effects should NOT be given to individuals with auto- immune disorders, or with allergies, or with chemo treatments, or... Stevia might be safe or it might not, or it might be safe within certain boundaries (dose level, frequency, duration, etc.), or it might be safe for certain individuals, or it might be good for certain individuals, or it might be bad for certain individuals. Claims can be thrown around (and certainly by some of the people in our local health food store they are in profusion, usually with one person's claim after another quoting the same things that all lack reliable study and often lack any study at all, or with anecdotal "evidence" given even though the placebo effect is so strong that even placebo surgeries have good cure rates for some things given the power the mind sometimes might have in certain people) but that does NOT mean that health food store pundits or popular websites or such are ACCURATE. If you have some more recent info with real studies I'd like to check them out. Certainly, there ARE some things sold in herbal stores which are useful and healthy (and we use or have used some of them), but just as with a pharmacy this depends on the item, the situation, the patient, how it is taken, etc. Ditto, the assumptions made about some of the ingredients in things like Pedialyte. WHY assume that they must be bad? When the numbers are run many of the ingredients which people scream about are a lot healthier than other things that they just take cavalierly based upon what someone told them. LOOK AT THE NUMBERS. Look at dose size in comparison to size, look at frequency, look at duration, look at percentages affected and how affected. etc. Look at other studies which compare risks associated with NOT having that ingredient (esp. preservatives). Look at BENEFITS seen in relation to some of the ingredients (Yes, such exist). Just because something is natural does not make it safe. Need examples? Here's just a tiny, tiny sample: golden chain "tree", assorted venoms, shellfish in summer months, stonefish, surgeon fish, unripe akee fruit, castor beans, hemlock, amanita mushrooms, pokeweed, rhubarb leaves, nightshade, yew, false hellebore, hellebore, boxwood, cherry leaves, daphne, holly berries, iris roots, lily of the valley, laurel, lupin, mistletoe, moonflower, four o'clocks, datura, privet, sweet pea, etc. etc. etc. Never forget that walled city in France centuries ago in which a hidden mold was in grain used by the town baker and the entire small city had to be locked and turned into a mental hospital. Think abou tthe cases of liver and kidney damage and of GI tract cancer connected with blue-green "algea" (actually cyanobacter) when species that even experts can't readily tell from safer ones got in with the safe one marketed. Glad you wanted to check, but think that some of the assumptions in your foundation need checking, too, before others just carry on from them. [Posted in FML issue 3144]