(H/T Mises Community member “limitgov”.)
(NaturalNews) Live in Europe? Get your herbs while they last. New rules put forth by the European Union (EU) will ban the sale of certain herbal remedies that have been used for centuries.
Traditional herbs such a St. John’s Wort or Echinacea must now meet strict licensing guidelines in order to be sold, while other lesser-known herbs that haven’t been “traditionally” used in the last 30 years won’t even make the cut to reach consumer shelves. Only those products that have been “assessed” by the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will be available for purchase. The real kicker? Even approved products will only be recommended for minor ailments such as the common cold, which means that product labeling may no longer be allowed to convey the potent health benefits of widely-used herbal remedies.
According the the EU, the laws were put in place to protect consumers from the “damaging” effects of traditional herbal remedies. The subtext of that statement, of course, is that herbal remedies can sometimes have dangerous interactions when taken with prescription drugs. Used alone, however, herbal supplements rarely pose a problem. With so many people taking prescription drugs, it’s clear that the EU’s move to ban herbal products is a monopolistic attack on the alternative health movement.
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There is hope – rather than take this legistation lying down, sign the Avaaz petition (820,000 people already have) and help to underpin the legal case by the Alliance for Natural Health.http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_herbal_medicine_ban/?copy
When we went to Italy last summer, my daughter came down with a respiratory illness (she had RSV as a baby, and that makes her prone to respiratory problems). We visited a pharmacy where, for 2 or 3 Euro, the pharmacist sold us a couple of herbal remedies which she recommended. Black Elderberry concentrate was one, can’t remember the other. I know elderberry is commonly used for flu.
They worked wonders, and without having to pay for a doctor/ER visit. In fact, we managed to smuggle the leftovers through the geniuses at the TSA and have used them several times since.
Good thing the state is stepping in to limit such dangerous behavior. Better to drop a couple hundred bucks on doctor visits and prescriptions.
I hope the countries of the EU threaten nullification.
For clarification (none of the following means that this new law is sensible, but it does put it into a somewhat different light):
From what I read (I only have a German reference: http://blog.gwup.net/2011/05/01/krautermedizin-oder-fehlinformation ), the claim that newer herbal remedies are being banned while older ones (on the market for > 30 years) have to go through a strict licensing procedure is incorrect.
Actually, the older ones only have to be registered and no scientific proof of efficacy or safety is necessary, while newer ones, indeed, have to be strictly assessed (which is the same standard that is demanded for other (non-herbal) medicine).
Also there seems to be the exception that all of this is true only for industrially produced remedies and everything that is produced directly by a pharmacist is totally exempt (don’t ask me why, probably lobbying going crazy again).
So, while the new law is certainly still stupid for the obvious reasons (it’s not the state’s business what I put in my body), it is certainly no more stupid than in the case of non-herbal medicine.
Except that those laws are plenty stupid.
Furthermore, half of the medicinal herbs are crap that grows wild; dandelion, elderberry, echinacea, plantain, rosemary, to name a few. Pharmacopeial Herbs are less potent and thus much less prone to side effects than pharmaceuticals.
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