Its not an herbal  Its an extract taken from bing cherries that mimics our own natural sleep hormone. I Agree with you and have used it as a child myself and was told by a leading child neurologist to use up to 6mg a night with my autistic son when he was as young as 3. All my children have used it. I find very little actual information in this article and find it completely misleading that they are calling an extract a "drug" and say a whole lot of what the "experts" say but don't name anyone but the one person who's opinion we are hearing. No facts to back anything up either. What a crock

Medical practitioners don't prescribe melatonin because you don't need a prescription for it. We don't get paid for any prescriptions we do write however, so your reasoning is incorrect. I could write prescriptions for any given drug all day long and no one is coming to reward me with anything. And Katie above is correct that it is a hormone we naturally produce and not an herbal product. I do recommend melatonin for sleep and I use it for my children.