No Doctors. Various alternative medicines and remedies became popular during the 1990s, some of which faded from view as rapidly as they entered the popular consciousness. Because they were classified by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as food supplements rather than medications, they received no federal approval and could be purchased without a prescription. Melatonin, a naturally occurring inexpensive sleep medicine, took the nation by storm in 1995 as a remedy for jet lag. Herbal medicines such as St. John's Wort (for depression), ginkgo biloba (for Alzheimer's disease), milk thistle (for liver disease), saw palmetto (for prostate problems), or Garcinia cambogia (for weight loss) flooded the market. The manufacturers of Metabolife, a weight-loss product, saw sales zoom to close to $1 billion in 1999 in spite of concerns by physicians that some of its components might be dangerous without proper monitoring. Though Americans spent as much...