One of the world's leading medical journals is calling for herbal remedies and other alternative treatments to stop being given a 'free ride'. Such treatments are unproven, unregulated, occasionally dangerous and should be subjected to the same rigorous standards as conventional treatments, says the influential New England Journal of Medicine. 'There cannot be two types of medicine - alternative and conventional,' writes journal editor Marcia Angell and editor-in-chief Jerome Kassirer in Thursday 17 September's edition.