Herbalism

MODALITY: HERBALISM

e.g Ayurvedic, Traditional Chinese Medicine, Unani, Western Herbalism, other traditional herbalist practitioners…

Legislative Risks

Herbalists are in the process of being affected by the following EU laws.

Click on the links below to read about how this legislation may affect you:

Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive
    European Commission summary
ANH summary
    ANH briefing paper THMPD

Human Medicinal Products Directive
European Commission summary
ANH summary

Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation
   European Commission summary
   ANH summary
   ANH briefing paper NHCR

Novel Foods and Novel Food Ingredients Regulation
European Commission summary
ANH summary

UK Statutory Regulation of Herbal Practitioners

Another way in which the practice of traditional forms of herbalism is at risk, is through regulation of practitioners. This has been a hotly contested issue.

To download the UK government proposal for Statutory Regulation of herbal practitioners and other CAM therapists, click here.

Scientific Risks

The use of the randomised controlled trial, or more rather its abuse, along with meta-analyses and systematic reviews based on these types of trials, to evaluate herbalism, creates a big hurdle for herbalism, whether of European or non-European origin.

To find out about how professor Ernst and colleagues are, in the opinion of the ANH, misleading us, read the following articles:

ANH article: Are we being hoodwinked by alternative medicine or by one of its professors?

New attack on herbal medicine by Prof Ernst and colleagues

UK anti-comp med campaign given another stab by Prof Ernst

Media Risks

There has been a plethora of press which aims to show herbalism in a bad light. Here is a key example:

PhD girl is killed by Chinese treatment: Did Ling ‘Carrie’ Wang really die of an adverse reaction to a Chinese herbal medicine? Is there proper evidence of a link between her taking Jin Bu Huang and suffering liver poisoning, leading to her death? Is this problem linked to all herbal medicines – or could it have been a bad batch? What of the 200 or so deaths a year in the UK alone from Over-The-Counter (OTC) paracetamol which is rarely reported in the media…?