Alternative Medicine: The Evidence (BBC2)

Surviving Disaster: San Francisco Earthquake (BBC1)

PROFESSOR Kathy Sykes asked a lot of questions in Alternative Medicine. Supplying answers proved more difficult. The second part of the title, The Evidence, was hard to come by which made it ultimately very irritating.

So did endless touristy-type shots of Professor Sykes wandering around foreign locations as she investigated the effectiveness of herbs as an alternative to other forms of treatment.

Buried in the show were important discoveries, although Professor Sykes was always qualifying her finds by pointing out the lack of scientific proof.

In South Africa, she found a herb being used to treat HIV Aids sufferers at a hospice. Half the 800 people treated had shown an improvement. Those it helped lived another three years past their life expectancy with the condition.

The work is controversial and not yet documented. It may not be a cure but does appear to help. Not that Professor Sykes was convinced. "I need to find evidence that's more solid," she said.

At the British Medical Association, doctors provided anecdotal evidence of the healing powers of herbs. They've been used to relieve depression, help sufferers of Alzheimer's and a "herbal cocktail" aids a little girl with eczema all over her body.

Some herbs may be effective but are also potentially dangerous and subject to very few controls. To add to the gloom, Professor Sykes asserted that there's little will and no money to investigate the healing power of herbs.

She did, however, provide a useful guide to the so-called super herbs for those who don't know their devil's claw from their saw palmetto.

The latest in the Surviving Disaster series recalled the earthquake that hit San Francisco in October 1989, concentrating on the aftermath on the collapsed Oakland freeway.

The drama-documentary concentrated on a few stories to bring home the human impact of the disaster. What you got was neither full-blown disaster movie (certainly not on the BBC budget) nor a proper drama.

Amazing real footage of the damaged freeway showed how the earthquake caused over a mile of the upper deck to collapse on the lower deck, crushing cars and motorists in between.

Much time was spent showing heroic efforts to free the foot of Dorothy, trapped in a car, squashed by a slab of concrete. It took several hours for rescuers to free her. Another story followed a woman travelling in a van with friends. Of the eight in the vehicle, five died.

At the end the real people appeared to shed a few tears and recall their horror stories.

Dorothy gave thanks for the "jaws of life", a hydraulic rescue tool that can prise a car apart in minutes. But most of all she owes her life to a fireman named Lorenzo, who refused to give up and rejected suggestions from other helpers that they should ignore her cries for help and concentrate on "easier rescues".