Europe: Herbal Medicines and Herbalists - Health Supreme NewsGrabs 22 December 2010
European Commission reneges on assistance to European herbal practitioners
Pressure from European Union (EU) citizens forced a recent meeting between Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and the European Commission (EC) to discuss the impact of the EC’s directive on herbal medicines which will be fully implemented EU-wide as of 1 May 2011. Unfortunately, the meeting, held at the European Parliament on the 29th November 2010, showed how unwilling the EC is to follow through on a pledge it made back in 2008. The pledge was made in the Commission’s report (COM(2008) 584 final) on its first four years of experience with the herbal directive, known as the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive. In the report, the Commission specifically recognised that the directive was not suitable for holistic traditions, such as Ayurveda and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). Crucially, it also indicated it would consider the feasibility of an entirely new regulatory framework for such traditions.My comment: Quote from the article: "It’s worth remembering that the THMPD was never intended as a regulatory framework for practitioners of herbal medicine. The directive clearly states its intent to be a framework for manufactured products sold directly to the end consumer, for minor ailments, without the supervision of a medical practitioner."You have the solution to the problem right here. Since the THMPD was not intended as a regulatory framework for herbal practitioners, it will not touch herbal practitioners. It establishes a registration process for over-the-counter herbal medicines. Full stop.
What happens in the world of practitioners is outside the scope of the directive and any national implementation of it.
The Italians have understood this. We have, here in Italy, a thriving economy of herbal practitioners and herb shops, called "erboristerie" (that's plural of erboristeria). Herbalists have a three-year university training, and many of the shopkeepers are trained herbalists. No one expects them to pack up and go home just because the EU made a law to register herbal medicines.
I believe that some people are confusing two things here. Herbal traditions including practitioners are very much alive. Herbal medicines as registered over-the-counter medicines are in trouble. The bar has been set too high, and very few have been registered. But that does not mean we should think that herbal traditions can or will be affected, much less wiped out, by an initiative of the EU bureaucracy to permit registration of herbal medicines under certain conditions.
Petition: Stop the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive
This is a petition drive against the EU's law that requires medicine registration for herbs...
without providing a workable procedure to do so.The Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) is presented as a service to European citizens and as simple to apply. However, close examination of its methods in practice demonstrates that the reality will be an egregious abridgement of the rights of individuals to obtain and use the health treatments they choose.
While it benefits citizens for governmental agencies to advise on efficacy and safety of products that have been commonly and freely used by utilising a particular method of inquiry, that information may not address the needs of individuals and presumes that there is only one system for obtaining accurate and beneficial information. That is equivalent to allowing only one religion as the accepted source of truth.
The costs and systems required by THMPD are generally not manageable by small manufacturers, which are the predominant suppliers of herbal products. This results in an unfair competitive advantage to multinational corporations, which ultimately limits the individual's access to quality and selection in herbal medicinal products.
With THMPD, the European Union has overstepped and is severely restricting the unwritten rights of each human being to choose and access methods of managing health. It is a dangerous usurpation of civil rights that assumes the individual does not have the ability to make proper health decisions. Self-determination in matters of health must be treated as an inherent civil right, and THMPD is an abrogation of it.
USA: Food Safety Passed By Legislative Trickery
Once again, outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, along with her sidekicks Waxman and Dingell, has used legislative "sleight-of-hand" to force through the “Consumer Assistance to Recycle and Save Act” (H.R.2751) with S.510 attached. Just today, the Bill passed on a vote of 215 For and 144 Against. It is rich irony indeed that the "Cash for Clunkers" reauthorization bill (H.R.2751) has provided the ride for S.510, another “clunker” that will unleash an avalanche of useless, business-killing paperwork upon the food industry and a swarm of parasitic FDA bureaucrats. The result will be, as we have said all along, a food supply that is less safe, more expensive, and less abundant.
Earthing: The Most Important Health Discovery Ever?
We all live and function electrically on an electrical planet. We are each of us a collection of dynamic electrical circuits. In the living matrix of our complex bodies, trillions of cells constantly transmit and receive energy in the course of their programmed biochemical reactions. The movement of nutrients and water into the cells is regulated by electric fields, and each type of cell has a frequency range in which it operates. Your heart, brain, nervous system, muscles, and immune system are prime examples of electrical subsystems operating within your "bioelectrical" body. The fact is, all of your movements, behaviors, and actions are energized by electricity. Earthing research demonstrates that connection to the Earth initiates an immediate electrophysiological shift inside your body indicative of improved blood, nervous system, immune system, and muscular function...In electricity, all electrical systems are "grounded"; that is, stabilized by the electrical energy of the Earth's surface. Without a ground, appliances or sophisticated medical devices would not work properly. Similarly, when connected to the Earth, the body receives an electric signal that normalizes and stabilizes its many biological systems and mechanisms. This signal also appears to be the source of negatively charged free electrons, present in unlimited quantity on the surface of the Earth. The hypothesis put forward by scientists involved in Earthing research is that the transfer of electrons into the body quenches or neutralizes positively charged, electron-seeking free radicals that drive chronic inflammation activity at the core of many common diseases. We suggest that the mightiest anti-inflammatory on the planet may be the very planet itself!
WikiLeaks cables: Michael Moore film Sicko was 'not banned' in Cuba
American diplomats made up a story that Cuba banned Michael Moore's 2007 documentary, Sicko, in an attempt to discredit the film which painted an unflattering picture of the US healthcare system, the film-maker said today.A confidential US embassy cable released by WikiLeaks claimed that Castro's government banned the Oscar-nominated film because it painted such a "mythically" favourable picture of Cuba's healthcare system that the authorities feared it could lead to a "popular backlash".
But Moore said that far from being suppressed by Havana, the film – which attempted to discredit the US healthcare system by highlighting what it claimed was the excellence of the Cuban system – was shown on national television.
The film-maker said on his blog that the diplomatic cable, dated 31 January 2008, was "a stunning look at the Orwellian nature of how bureaucrats for the state spin their lies and try to recreate reality...
Dumbing Down Society Part I: Foods, Beverages and Meds
s there a deliberate effort by the government to dumb down the masses? The statement is hard to prove but there exists a great amount of data proving that the ruling elite not only tolerates, but effectively introduces policies that have a detrimental effect on the physical and mental health of the population. This series of articles looks at the many ways the modern man is being dumbed down.
Research red tape contributes to the suffering and death of millions
Overregulation is preventing vital clinical trials to investigate the effectiveness of treatments, writes Sir Iain ChalmersWe need to clarify what we do and don't know. Only then can we identify where important uncertainties remain about treatments. To do this, we must insist on the results of all reliable research being made publicly available, including research that is too often swept under the carpet because the results are disappointing.
GlaxosmithKline implicated in systemic clinical drug trial deception & insider fraud
‘A psychiatrist on the payroll of GlaxoSmithKline has been sentenced to 13 months in prison after pleading guilty to committing research fraud in clinical trials for antidepressant Paxil. Palazzo enrolled children who did not actually suffer from major depressive or obsessive compulsive disorder, then falsified records & psychiatric diagnoses.The case’s significance goes beyond simple research fraud, as Glaxo is now defending itself against charges that for 15 years it deliberately concealed evidence that Paxil increases the risk of suicide in children. Glaxo is also defending itself against accusations that it manipulated data to conceal the risks of its diabetes blockbuster Avandia, and that it failed to warn parents that Paxil may cause birth defects if taken by pregnant women.
Will Cymbalta and Lyrica Be Vioxx II?
Merck sold Vioxx as safer and more effective than simpler aspirin and other over-the-counter pain relievers (and some suspect was behind warnings about the safety of Advil and Aleve, publicized soon after Vioxx hit the hot seat). Not that Merck was the only company selling COX-2 specific inhibitors.Pfizer withdrew Bextra, a similar drug, in 2005 and last year agreed to pay $2.3 billion for fraudulent marketing of Bextra, Lyrica and two other drugs which was the largest criminal fine ever imposed in the U.S. According to the American Heart Association, patients taking Bextra after heart surgery were 2.19 times more likely to suffer a stroke or heart attack.
Video: Deadly Medicine - FDA Fails to Regulate Rapidly Growing Industry of Overseas Drug Testing
This is a video interview on Democracy Now with Jim Steele, who co-authored the article published in Vanity Fair - (next link just after this one)
Pharmaceutical companies are increasingly conducting clinical trials for new drugs outside the U.S., usually in countries where regulations are less stringent and trials are much cheaper, often leading to deadly results. Twenty years ago, only 271 trials of drugs intended for use by Americans were conducted overseas. By 2008, the number had risen to nearly 6,500—many taking places in areas with poor and illiterate test subjects.
Vanity Fair: Deadly Medicine
Prescription drugs kill some 200,000 Americans every year. Will that number go up, now that most clinical trials are conducted overseas—on sick Russians, homeless Poles, and slum-dwelling Chinese—in places where regulation is virtually nonexistent, the F.D.A. doesn’t reach, and “mistakes” can end up in pauper’s graves? The authors investigate the globalization of the pharmaceutical industry, and the U.S. Government’s failure to rein in a lethal profit machine.
Los Alamos Scientist: TSA Scanners Shred Human DNA
While the application of scientific knowledge creates technology, sometimes the technology is later redefined by science. Such is the case with terahertz (THz) radiation, the energy waves that drive the technology of the TSA: back scatter airport scanners.... what Alexandrov and his team discovered is that the resonant effects of the THz waves bombarding humans unzips the double-stranded DNA molecule. This ripping apart of the twisted chain of DNA creates bubbles between the genes that can interfere with the processes of life itself: normal DNA replication and critical gene expression.
The New Child Abuse: The Psychiatric Diagnosing and Drugging of Our Children
Science and medicine have so successfully rationalized and justified our society's most devastating and pervasive form of child abuse that it remains almost wholly unacknowledged, though it is known to every sentient adult and to most children. Probably every adult and half-grown child in America knows and can identify at least one child who is the victim of this abuse. Those who teach, coach, minister to or otherwise serve children may know dozens or even hundreds of children who are victims of the new child abuse.Our society's particular form of child abuse is the psychiatric diagnosing and drugging of our children.
The diagnoses are becoming almost innumerable including LD, ADHD, OCD, oppositional defiant disorder, bipolar disorder, and Asperger's and autistic spectrum disorders. Increasingly children also fall victim to psychological tests that allegedly identify frontal lobe dysfunctions characterized by inattention or flawed executive functions.
Like the diagnoses, the drugs administered to children have mushroomed to involve every class of psychiatric medication, including stimulants, antidepressants, tranquilizers, mood stabilizers and antipsychotic agents...
Two principles are self-evident: First, convincing children that they have "something wrong" in their heads such as genetically crossed wires or biochemical imbalances is the surest way to rob them of self-esteem, personal responsibility, self-mastery and the hope of an unlimited future. Second, convincing children that they have a psychiatric diagnosis or treating them as if they have one and teaching them to rely on psychiatric drugs is a prescription for their becoming lifelong mental patients.
A Concise Compendium To The Problem With Vaccines
Factors determining the extent of vaccine derived neurological damage:
1. Point of Entry
2. Timing of Injections
3. Synergistic Toxicity of Heavy Metals
4. The Double-Edged Sword - Cancer & Viral Infections
5. Preganacy Risks Associated with Vaccines
Fetal Immune System Welcomes Invaders: Explanation for Miscarriages and Asthma?
The fetal immune system has been treated as nothing more than an undeveloped adult one—one that needs to be supplemented with vaccinations. Nothing could be further from the truth.
HPV vaccine: Coroner raises concerns
MONTREAL - A Quebec coroner can't explain why a 14-year-old girl died after receiving a dose of the Gardasil vaccine.In December 2008, Anabelle Morin's mother found the teenage girl unconscious in the bathtub of their home. Just days earlier, the teenager had received her second dose of Gardasil, which vaccinates against the HPV virus, a sexually-transmitted infection that can be a precursor to cervical cancer.
Morin had an adverse reaction after her first shot in October 2008. A few days following the immunization, she began experiencing dizziness and memory loss. The symptoms were so severe she was transported to a Montreal hospital for tests.
But two months later she received the necessary second immunization.
H1N1 Vaccine Surplus From 2009 Reveals Growing Distrust – Cost To Taxpayers Exceeds 2.5 Billion
VACCINE SURPLUS FROM 2009 – Canada: $200,000,000+ worth of unused H1N1 vaccine. United States: $455,000,000+ worth of unused H1N1 vaccine. France: approximately $750,000,000 worth of unused H1N1 vaccine supply. Britain: $250,000,000 worth of unused H1N1 vaccine supply (3.8 million doses). Germany: $300,000,000 (approximately 48 million doses wasted). Italy: $260,000,000 worth of H1N1 vaccine supply unused (40 million doses). Netherlands & other Euro countries: comparable waste.- - -
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Natural health and nutrition on La Leva di Archimede
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"The individual is supreme and finds the way through intuition"
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Wednesday December 22 2010
updated on Tuesday December 13 2011URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2010/12/22/europe_herbal_medicines_and_herbalists_health_supreme_newsgrabs_22_december_2010.htm
