About us

What is the Alliance for Natural Health?

The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) was founded in 2002 by Dr Robert Verkerk, an internationally acclaimed scientist, with over 25 years of academic, commercial and campaign experience in sustainability as it relates to the environment, agriculture and health.

The ANH is an internationally-active, not-for-profit, non-governmental organisation, based in the UK, that is working to help positively shape the regulatory and scientific framework affecting natural health in order to develop more sustainable, natural and biologically-compatible approaches to healthcare.

As an alliance, the ANH brings together, globally, natural health practitioners, medical doctors, scientists, lawyers, consumers and patients and other interested persons and organisations—all with a common interest to promote natural health as the rightful, primary approach to the management of human health.

Why are we important to you?

We are working on your behalf to help stop limitations on access to wholesome, safe foods and effective natural products used by millions in healthcare, whilst also raising awareness about, and working to limit, unsafe food technologies and contamination of the food supply. In a world where pharmaceutical drugs, complete with a raft of side effects, have become accepted by the medical establishment and healthcare authorities as the central plank in healthcare, people from all walks of life and from every continent of the world are choosing natural ways to maintain and promote health.

Executive Director of ANH, Dr Robert Verkerk, and past Legal Director, David Hinde, following the ANH's successful referral of its case to the European Court of Justice (January 2004), to protect bans on food supplements, particularly natural sources of vitamins and minerals

Natural products, be they herbs from long-standing eastern or other traditional medicinal cultures or sophisticated food supplements and functional foods, continue to help millions of people to restore balance in their bodies, so that self-healing processes are restored and good health is resumed. But therapeutically active foods and natural products are now deeply under threat, nationally and internationally, as increasingly stringent regulatory requirements are being ushered in by pharmaceutically-biased regulators, supported by a clutch of transnational corporations in the pharmaceutical and food sectors.

We in the ANH believe that every person has a right to use nature to help maintain or regain health, and it is an infringement of our civil liberties to prevent this. We also argue that good science and good law are the vital tools needed to help re-access this right, given that our bodies' metabolism and healing systems work together with rather than against nature. Good science and good law is what ANH does daily on your behalf, working locally, nationally and internationally.

Click here to review all of the ANH's current campaigns.

Key achievements to date include:

Raised public awareness of the significance of legislative threats to the long-term sustainability of natural healthcare
Made significant amendments to EU legislation through collaboration with Members of the European Parliament
Brought the landmark legal challenge to the EU Food Supplements Directive in the High Court London and the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg (2004-5)
Promoted rational science as the basis on which safety of nutrients should be assessed at a global level through the Codex Alimentarius Commission
Deconstructed flawed approaches to risk assessment and management, which are being used by regulators in an attempt to ban higher, beneficial dosages of natural products
Demonstrated clear connections in the disproportionate regulatory management of a wide range of issues ranging from food supplementation, genetically modified (GM) foods, water quality (including fluoridation) and vaccination.
Created a united front of common interests across Europe, the North America, Asia and other parts of the world.

We welcome you to our website. Please explore the many areas accessible via hyperlinks from our homepage, including our informative news archive and newsfeed. And most importantly - please get involved and support the Alliance for Natural Health in whatever way you can.

We are solely donation funded, so all donations [link to donations screen after clicking on box in top right of homepage] are very greatly appreciated.

We look forward to working with you to create a more natural future - in health, naturally

The ANH Team

In the European Court of Justice after the oral hearing
of the ANH's food supplement case in January 2005

The ANH Core Team

Dr Robert Verkerk BSc MSc DIC PhD, Executive and Scientific Director

Dr Verkerk is an internationally-acclaimed expert in sustainability, with 25 years of experience particularly in the areas of agriculture and healthcare. He has a Masters Degree and Doctorate from Imperial College London, where he also worked as a Postdoctorate Research Fellow for 7 years. He has extensive international experience, having worked especially in Asia, Africa, Europe, Australasia and North and Central America. He has acted as an advisor to governments but has always maintained strong connections with the NGO sector. Dr Verkerk founded the ANH in 2002 and has been its Scientific and Executive Director ever since.

Meleni Aldridge, Executive Coordinator

Meleni Aldridge has 15 years of experience as a practitioner of complementary and holistic medicine and 11 years teaching experience in her capacity as a Senior Lecturer at a UK university. She has previously worked in the banking and insurance sectors. Her initial training in health and body work was in South Africa, having spent her childhood in Zimbabwe. Her skills as a practitioner and communicator, coupled with her life-long commitment to natural medicine, bring invaluable experience to Meleni’s role as the Development Manager of the ANH, a position she has held since 2005.

Paul Harris BSc, MBA, Finance Director

Paul Harris has extensive experience of manufacturing and service companies, at Director level, in a wide range of business sectors. He brings his administrative and financial experience to the ANH, which is the only not-for-profit NGO with which he is associated. He has experience across all functions of business and an understanding of the preferred business operation from a funder’s perspective.