Recent attack on herbalism by Edzard Ernst backfires
Herbal medicine ‘risks harmful side-effects’
Ernst strikes again! So Edzard Ernst no longer claims to have ANY training in alternative medicine - read his own CV here!
Readers Comments (see for yourself):
While there is no known cure for the parasite Pharmacillus FundsRus, [the condition not even recognised by western medicine, which is itself hopelessly infected] a diagnosis is always evident following a random double-blind money trail. The symptoms, often including acute shareholderitis, swollen ego, distortion of the research nodes and an urge in the sufferer to release presses (not fully understood) are best dealt with by a large dose of salt, well above the RDA. Prevention is the best medicine. Oh, and an apple a day.
There is an absence of balance in the story and the story itself is misleading to the public and positively dangerous in that it could put people off perfectly safe effective remedies for the alternatives from drug companies which are not as safe or effective as the MHRA, BMA and government want us to think.
As a lawyer with a background as a trained scientist I have been directly involved with the drug industry in relation to herbal medicines. In my professional work I have met and dealt with medical and scientific professionals on different occasions who are involved in pharmaceutical research and the commercialisation of herbal, nutritional and other natural remedies and who recognise and in some cases are in awe at the efficacy of herbal medicines and the skills of herbalists.
The pharmaceutical industry have been trawling the world to snap up the secrets to numerous herbal, nutritional and other natural remedies in an attempt to turn them into conventional pill and bottled patented remedies. Yesterday in the Daily Mail is an example:- “Anti-cancer pill made of wine, rice and berries”.
At the same time as the pharmaceutical industry are doing that some elements are desperately trying to knock the traditional herbalists, nutritionalists and others out of the picture with misleading stories like this one. It is farcical of the “researchers” to suggest that because no one has paid for formal research into herbal, nutritional and other natural remedies that there is no evidence of efficacy. There are large numbers of known and proven nutritional and other natural remedies which have not been formally researched and written up for publication in medical or scientific journals. No pharmaceutical company is going to fund research to prove a remedy anyone can knock up in their kitchen at minimal cost is safe and effective.
Drug companies control the evidence base in medical research. Two thirds of so-called “research” is funded by the drug industry. And the medical profession, with considerable drug company influence, has adopted a demonstrably nonsensical evidence base. This favours expensive published research which mainly only drug companies can afford to carry out. No one is carrying out needed research to demonstrate the efficacy of simple nutritional and other natural remedies on the scale needed.
And frankly, the suggestion from the “experts” referred to in the story that three randomised clinical trials (RCTs) tell us anything about the efficacy of herbal medicines in general is just not scientific and a joke. Stories like this one are a danger to the health and safety of the public.
There are many safe effective herbal, nutritional and other natural remedies which we are all being denied because of the power of the pharmaceutical industry in the promotion of medicines of sometimes dubious efficacy.
