A lengthy article on the Alliance for Natural Health site urging us all to keep up the good fight against the risible (if they were not also so threatening) proposed EU restrictions on the sale of herbal medicines, includes an astonishing piece by Chris Dhaenens of the European Benefyt Foundation.
He suggests that the need for a framework to regulate the sale of potentially dangerous herbal medicines was based on a case, back in 1990, when 135 of 15,000 people given a slimming preparation which included the herb Aritsolochia suffered irreversible kidney damage. What was not publicised at the time was that the herbal cocktail which was blamed for the damage was prepared by orthodox medical practitioners with no knowledge of herbal medicine (throughout the EU ‘authorised health care practitioners’ can prescribed unlicensed medicines, including herbal medicines) and included several amphetamine-like substances whose use was subsequently restricted because of their danger to human health.
What has also, mysteriously, never been published are the findings of three subsequent court cases all of which established, unequivocally, that there was no connection between the kidney damage suffered by the slimmers and the herb Aristolochia.
Scroll half way down the article to find Chris Dhaenens’ report; read the whole article to see how the campaign is going and how you can help.