Medical Herbalists under attack!
October 27th, 2009This just came to us over the inernets:
I would like you to take note of, and publicise, the following important situation regarding this governments apparent intention to allow the public’s access to herbal medicines, medical herbalists and herbal manufacturers to go down the pan when new EU laws come into play in this country in eighteen months time. I also want to publicise actions planned to highlight the issue. Here are the details, in brief:
The background: For ten years, following the House of Lords Science and Technology Committee’s desire to see herbal medicine better regulated (following concerns around the rapid expansion of the Chinese and Indian herbal traditions into this country) much work has been done within the industry, with the MCA/MHRA, with academics and other interested parties to work out a way to better protect the public, the profession and the businesses that supply the professions. The answer was found to be Statutory Regulation.
The newly formed body The Health Professions Council was deemed to be the appropriate umbrella organisation under which professional Medical Herbalists could practice, ensuring the raising of educational standards, continuing professional development, quality control of herbal products etc. The government produced a Public Consultation Document on the matter, and it was due to end on Nov 2nd 9009 (although it has just had a two week extension due to the postal workers strike).
The bigger background: On 30th April 2011 the EU regulations on herbal medicinal products (Directive 2004/24/EC, amending Directive 2001/833/EC) become law in the UK. Only herbal preparations that have been licensed will be marketed. That means that the current manufacturers of herbal medicines, who have Good Manufacturing Practice and thorough quality control and analysis in place, will not be permitted to sell their products to qualified, trained and insured Medical Herbalists (the practitioners), so they will not be able to prescribe tailor made medicines to their patients, who will suffer.
The problem: The government is planning to abandon it’s committment to Statutory Regulation of this sector and leave it to be all but destroyed from May 2011 (18 months away).
The solution: Complete the Statutory Regulation of the sector, as planned and worked through, and then the public can be assured of high quality herbal preparations, and of the training of the professionals.
The action being taken: A demonstration outside Parliament and a Mass Lobby of MPs on November 2nd (next Monday) 12 noon until 4pm, with Medical Herbalists, universities that teach degrees on the subject and produce proficient practitioners, companies that produce high quality herbal medicines, and the UK public, who have always had access to herbs, their birthright, and wish to continue to have the choice of this form of medicine, especially once reassured that they are in safe trained hands.
PLEASE JOIN US IN MAKING YOUR VOICE HEARD. YOU AND YOUR READERS NEVER KNOW WHEN YOU WILL NEED HERBAL MEDICINE (WE ALL EVOLVED WITH IT AFTER ALL!)
Yours very sincerely
Afifah Hamilton MNIMH Cert Phyt
Member of the National Institute of Medical Herbalists since 1993
[…]
If you read BLOGDIAL, then you know that it is immoral to use force to prevent people from ingesting whatever they like into their bodies. This is true of any substance, no matter where it is from, who made it, or for what purpose you are ingesting it.
It is completely immoral to try and regulate or restrict the use of or the practitioners and dispensers of any medicine, including Herbal Medicine. This includes licensing of any kind of either the people or the products.
Once again, any regulations brought in will affect only the poor. The rich will be able to fly to China and receive top class herbal medicine, whilst the poor are left with poisonous pharmaceuticals that are designed not to cure people, but to keep them in a steady state of illness. Just ask anyone who is on anti cholesterol or anti hypertension drugs. They are explicitly told that they will be taking pharmaceuticals for the rest of their lives, and of course, this means ‘customers’ for life for the drug companies, who in countries with socialised medicine, will be taking stolen money from everyone to pay for the endless stream of prescription drugs.
It’s a wonderful scam, and of course, herbal medicine is a direct threat to this stream of stolen money. In China, acupuncture is used instead of pharmaceutical anaesthetics. Do you REALLY think that anaesthesiologists and the people who manufacture their knock out drops want Chinese ‘pseudo science’ in their operating theatres?
Of course they do not.
Not only are the rich going to continue to get superior, natural, individualised and genuinely beneficial health care, but anyone who wants it will be able to get herbal medicine by illegal means.
Does anyone really think that the same government that cannot stop the importation of Cocaine, Heroin and Marijuana or the clandestine manufacture of Acid, Ecstasy and Meth-amphetamines and will be able to stop herbal medicine?
If everyone who wanted it simply ordered it by post, it would be physically impossible for the state to intercept all of the packages without disrupting commerce. And that is something they will not allow.
Of course, a black market in herbal medicine will drive the prices up, and cause all sorts of unscrupulous people to get involved in supplying it, putting people’s health at risk… but the state doesn’t care about your health, or you or what is right and wrong; they simply want to destroy EVERYTHING that does not benefit the people who control them, i.e. corrupt business in vampiric symbiosis with the state.
Demonstrating is, of course, a total waste of time. Lobbying your MP is also a complete waste of time; this edict has come down from Europe, so the vestigial, purely ceremonial MPs will be powerless to stop it. Most of them are spineless or brainwashed or totalitarians in any case, and do not want you to be able to trot down to China Town and get a bag of stinky herbs to eliminate your bad skin:
Think about it; what are they going to do to stop people from reading recipes on the internets and brewing up their own teas from herbs they grow themselves or trade? Perhaps they are going to police the gardens of every house in the UK to make sure you are only growing those plants that are either of no medicinal value or that are deadly to consume.
The people behind this legislation are COMPLETELY EVIL AND INSANE, and anyone who obeys them is nuts.
Only the most simple minded fails to see that the EU is a terrible organisation and the only solution is for Britain to get out completely as soon as possible. If not, even more laws will be dictated to the UK Parliament, who will bend over every time and then enforce the diktats of foreigners that are not only a nuisance, but are now doing actual bodily harm to you.
Once again, lobbying MPs and demonstrating is not going to change anything. It would be far better if everyone who practiced this form of medicine simply put the state on written notice that they are no longer bound by the illegitimate edicts that have been handed down, and that they will continue to serve their patients no matter what. A single full page ad in the Times would be enough. It would cost the same as mounting a demonstration and mass lobbying the MPs and would send a very strong signal that business as usual WILL CONTINUE.
There are not enough aparatchicks to stop everyone from doing exactly what they want and following common sense. We have reached a tipping point where the state has detached itself from reality and the consent of the governed. All you need to do is simply carry on doing what you do whilst completely ignoring them. All they will be able to do is throw up their hands.