Herbal Remedies To Be Banned April 30th 2011

The EU Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD)
 

Did you know most of our herbal remedies are due to be banned by the EU from April 30th 2011? (That's after a sell-through period which will enable us to sell off existing stock). 

This is being masqueraded as a licensing scheme for "protection" of the public but actually it just serves the interests of big business, and does not serve the public interest. The licences are so prohibitively expensive to obtain, and so complicated that the new regulations amount in effect to an almost blanket ban on medicinal herbs. Seems unbeleivable, so silly in fact that it sounds like an April Fool's joke. But unfortunately its true.

This cannot be allowed to stand!
 

** Better still go and meet your MP. I was amazed that I was offered an appointment with my M.P. within 2 minutes of my call, and within 3 days just by phoning the local party headquarters.  A personal 15 minute meeting with your M.P. telling them how strongly you feel about this issue, is probably worth at least a dozen letters. I really think that showing you feel sufficiently strongly about this, that you were prepared to make the effort to call your M.P.'s office and arrange a personal meeting says a lot. In my case I made it very clear that my future voting intentions would be influenced by my M.P's willingness to support resisting this EU interference in my basic human rights, which is what this issue is really about. 

Please help....“It is the greatest of all mistakes to do nothing because you can only do a little." - Sydney Smith 1771-1845 English Writer.

 

FAQ's

1) If this is so important, why are the other companies who sell online herbal supplements not campaigning as hard as The Finchley Clinic?

Most of them like making money, but where it comes to protecting their customers rights, sadly many, probably indeed the majority simply can't be bothered to do very much, if anything at all. Of those that are willing to make any effort at all, some of their efforts are so so pitiful and half hearted that they might as well not bother. We tried in vein to get a number of friendly competitors to put the time, money and effort into this that we are putting into it, and the majority were apathetic to a degree which has both astonished and shocked us. It is my personal belief that some companies deserve to lose their businesses if they aren't willing to try to help save them in the first place. Sadly this appears to be the case with many, if not most online natural health retailers.

2) Can I sign a petition?

We believe that writing to your MPs and MEP's above will be far more useful than signing petitions. This is because we have never heard of a government saying "We were just about to implement such and such a policy, but we didn't because someone handed in a petition". We are sceptical about petitions, but we recommend you to sign them anyway, since they only take a minute.

To sign a petition Click here.
There is another excellant one here
 

3) I take such and such a product from The Finchley Clinic and its' vital to me. Will I still be able to get it?

THMPD is a directive concerning herbal medicines only. Basically if it's a herbal remedy, generally speaking not in their current form. However we do plan to re-formulate the products when current stocks run out.

If its NOT herbal then you will still be able to buy it, though other supplements are under serious threat by the equally awful EU Food Supplements Directive.

4) I read in the newspaper that I don't need to worry. The UK government has decided not to co-operate with the EU Directive. Is this true?

Or

My MP wrote back to tell me not to worry as the UK government has come to a compromise with the EU over this. Is this true? 

Basically, these statements are not true. But some politicians are using the following (see below) to mislead their constituents. This may be intentional or through genuine ignorance.

In March 2011, Andrew Lansley, the Secretary of State for Health, made an announcement that registered herbalists will be able to continue to practice and prescribe herbal remedies privately through statutory regulation to be introduced by 2012. This decision simply allows the continuation of the herbalists' exemption which has existed since 1968 that allows herbalists to prescribe unlicensed medicines to patients following one-to-one consultations. It is not a defiance of of the EU.
 
But from May 1st 2011, manufactured herbal medicines sold online and in health food shops, will still not be able to be legally sold unless they are registered under the EU's Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive. That's after what has been described as a 'reasonable' (but as yet undefined) sell-off period to allow companies such as ours to sell off existing stock.  That means if you're willing to fork out maybe 50 to 100 quid to see a herbalist, they will be able to prescribe you herbs. That's if the herbs are still in sufficient demand to continue to be produced after the ban on general sale comes in, which is somewhat doubtful.
 
So in conclusion :-
  • This is not serious protection of consumer rights.
  • The 'compromise' is a green light to allow those that can afford it to be able to consult a practitioner - if they can find one -  to buy herbs. This is not really a 'compromise' in any meaningful sense. It is just skillful political spin.
  • Our advice to customers is to refuse to accept this type of reply, if your elected representative comes back to you with this kind of rubbish.
  
5) The government and MHRA (Medicines and Health Care Regulatory Agency) claim that we don't need to worry as there has been "strong interest" in licensing in time for April 30th 2011. Is this true?
 
Thats depends on whether you regard 90 licences, covering 19 single herbs (as of April 2011), 11 of which are for different companies getting separate licenses for Echinacea, and a lot other duplication of the same herbs generally, out of approximately 1000 herbs used in the UK as "strong interest".
 
We do not regard this as "strong interest".  We regard it as "pathetic interest". If this is "strong interest", we'd hate to find out what "poor interest" would be!
 
6) The industry supports this regulation
 
This is at best an exaggeration. It is true that some practitioner organisations have supported it because they want to prevent you from being able to buy herbs without paying a consultation fee to their practitioners, so that they can make more money. One or two suppliers also now support it. This is where they have spent money getting licenses, and so now want to get the competition out of the way. But in general, the industry has never supported it, and those that have, have usually done so because of self-interest rather than for reasons of public interest.
 
 
7) The government is doing this because the public supports regulation

This nonsense stems from a government IPSOS / MORI poll (of which two thirds of the respondents stated they had never even used herbal remedies) which posed the question: “It is important that herbal medicines are regulated” (agree or disagree). This is absurd, and it proves nothing since we would say almost anyone would reply “agree” to a question phrased in this way. What if the bias had been reversed and the question had been

“There is no need to regulate herbal medicines” (agree or disagree). 

Or

“Do you consider that herbal medicines should be subject to disproportionate regulation?” 

Or

“Do you think that herbal medicines should be regulated if it were to mean a doubling in their price and most herbs being banned? 

Or

“Do you think that herbal medicines should be regulated and made to be produced to pharmaceutical standards even though herbal medicines are according to one leading study approximately 1/3000th as dangerous as mainstream medicines?”

Or

"Do you think that herbal medicines should be regulated so that they have to be made to be produced to pharmaceutical standards if it meant the resultant products would be far less natural?" *

* (Many licensed products are concentrated extracts, and are therefore unnatural and pose increased risks of producing side effects).

 

8) I got a letter from my MP assuring me that the purpose of THMPD is not to restrict my freeom of choice but to ensure safety and quality control

Really? How terribly nice that is. And so reassuring

But you should probably consider this and then decide whether you beleive this statement.

The products that have been approved under the THMPD (and even that number is to say the least pretty dysmal) are for the most part, not even what many of us would regard as ‘true’ herbal products.  They are alcohol or acetone (nail-polish remover) extracts, stabilised in a pharmaceutical base that can include artificial polymers and many other additives.  Very few contain whole-herb material and most herbalists would not regard these products as authentic to long-standing traditions of herbalism. They are effectively spin-offs from the comparatively new, 20th-century, phytopharmaceutical industry that has its roots in Germany, alongside the conventional pharmaceutical industry.  It comes as no surprise, then, that many retailers are refusing to stock the THR-approved products. They see the products as being of insufficient quality, both from the standpoint of effectiveness and because of the artificial ingredients they contain. 

Note: We anticipate that many of our customers would not want to spend their hard-earned money on such products and we will not be selling this type of rubbish.