ANH-Intl e-Alert: Seeing through the muddy waters of EU herbal medicine

ANH-Intl e-Alert: Seeing through the muddy waters of EU herbal medicine

There is a lot of information flying about cyberspace that suggests natural medicine in the EU effectively gets extinguished after April 2011. Well that might be part of a plan among some people pulling certain strings at high levels. But it’s not going to happen. That's because of you. And, of course, what we all do together. The use of herbs and other plants in healthcare precedes even the evolution of our species. All other animals do it. We will never stop doing it, but we do need to make our intent and desire clear. For many of us this is something we need to fight for proactively. For others, it's something that is done more quietly. But whatever you do, we urge you to do something.

But the first thing you need to make sure of is that you have the right information. Since we launched our joint strategy with the European Benefyt Foundation we have had a lot of questions from the public, but also from practitioners and suppliers of herbs. It is clear that there are so many views as to what is going on and many of them are incorrect.

To deal with this, we've put together a list of answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ). You'll find them in the first of our stories below. They may be a bit technical but unfortunately it is a technical subject. We hope these go some way to address the confusion.

Our second story concerns a new campaign launched against the entire field of natural medicine by a group of notorious British skeptics. The UK, in our view, probably harbours the worst expressions of this strange group of individuals who seem to be prepared to put their biases and belief systems ahead of the pursuit of science. We will probably admit that there are some in the natural medicine camp who are inclined to do the same, but that's because they are either more interested in experiencing or delivering the ongoing benefits of natural health. In that sense, they're less bothered about how or why it works. But to go out there, have no experience of the clinical application of the various modalities and then claim you are being uber-scientific and yet not be, smacks of hypocrisy. But it's worth keeping tabs on what these people are doing as they are very connected to key decision makers and mainstream media.

Let's hear it for natural health, after all, it is the most natural, logical, biologically compatible, sustainable and economic way of looking after ourselves.

Please get the (accurate) message out to your contacts asap - and please do what you can to help us get our case into court. Thanks to your donations we are already nearly half way to meeting the target for legal fees needed for the first stage of the challenge in the High Court in London.

Thank you to all those who've donated and thank you, in anticipation, to those who will be doing so soon.

In health, naturally

Rob Verkerk
ANH-Intl Founder and Executive Director