Where our MEP's stand:

 At the beginning of December 2010, we wrote a virtually identical e-mail to all 8 of our London Members of the European Parliament (MEP's) about this insult to your human rights, drafted by unelected officials, and passed without so much as a whimper of protest by the last government.

We asked them to negotiate an urgent amendment of The EU Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive, which will virtually wipe out herbal medicines in Europe from April 30th 2011 if it is strictly enforced. Having given all of them plenty of time to reply, here is a summary of the replies, we received. If you are one of their constituents (i.e. you are are based in London), please write to them yourselves and tell them what you think.

Find out who your MEP's are here.

Gerard Batten (UK Independence Party).

Mr. Batten replied almost immediately and telephoned us in person to discuss the situation. Has strongly supported our campaign, has written letters of protest to all the right power makers, and cutting a long story short is genuinely doing his utmost to protect your right to take herbal and other nutritional supplements. Please write to thank him for his support. His e-mail address is gerard.batten@europarl.europa.eu

Please note Mr Batten was the ONLY London MEP to fully support us in the way in which we asked. Of the rest, some are sympathetic and some are not, but as far as we can see, Mr Batten and his party are the only organisation who are actively trying to do what we asked them to do, which is to re-negotiate the directive entirely, and ideally not implement it at all in its current form.

 It is not our intention to tell you who to vote for, but his party, UKIP, are the only one who are seriously supporting your right to take herbal remedies of your choice. See this link to see what we mean.

 

Here is what the other MEP's said:

Marina Yannakoudakis (marina.yannakoudakis@europarl.europa.eu) and Syed Kamal (syed.kamall@europarl.europa.eu ) (both Conservative)

In a joint statement they stated : -

"When the Directive returns to Parliament, Marina has said that she will study the effects of the legislation on Member States and submit appropriate amendments. In the meantime, she will submit a Parliamentary Question to the Commission regarding the affects of the legislation on the UK herbal industry. "

Since then we have not heard from them again., but we will update this page if the situation changes

Our comments:

We do not fully understand what exactly is meant by "When the Directive returns to Parliament," as the directive has already been approved by the UK Parliament, but we appreciate any support, and they seemed to be at least reasonably sympathetic. If you are a constituent of their's please write to them yourself (email addresses above) to express your own concerns and tell them how losing your right to take a wide variety of herbal products will affect you.

As far as submitting "appropriate amendments" are concerned, our view is that the directive should be scrapped altogether.

Jean Lambert - jean.lambert@europarl.europa.eu  (Green Party)

After a long delay, Ms Lambert sent us a detailed reply, some of which is quoted below...

Although Jean and her Green colleagues consider that this Directive has introduced some positive measures, such as clearer labelling and product information for customers, as you have rightly pointed out, there is a risk that consumer choice could also be compromised. Like you, the Green group is concerned that small and medium sized producers of traditional medicinal products could suffer, to the benefit of larger pharmaceutical companies.

In light of several letters from concerned constituents, the Green group took the initiative to request a discussion regarding some of the undue obstacles related to the registration of traditional herbal medicinal products with the European Commission in the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety Committee on the 29 November 2010. For further information on these questions posed please see: http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/envi/cm/838/838514/838514en.pdf

The Commission ensured us that non-European herbal remedies such as Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicines would continue to be allowed to be sold in the EU after 30 April 2011 - as food supplements, as is currently the case.

(Note from The Finchley Clinic: This statement was not true, and we have explained to Ms Lambert that she is being misled).

Unfortunately, they also stated that they do not intend to extend the simplified registration for traditional use....

(Note # 2 from The Finchley Clinic: In fact there is nothing "simple" about the "simpllified registration", and it is horrendously expensive. This nonsense is used to make something which is apalling sound fair and reasonable, when it isn't).

 ...to medicinal products that also include non-herbal substances, nor modify the 15-year rule, nor make a specific proposal for a separate legal framework for medicines of other traditions. Although, certain non-European herbal remedies such as Ayurvedic and traditional Chinese medicines can continue to be sold as food supplements after 30 April 2011 without any requirements on them, this situation is certainly far from ideal, but probably the best possible compromise for the time being.

(Note #3 from The Finchley Clinic: This statement is not true either, except for a very small number of "culinary" herbs, which even the EU couldn't ban as things like peppermint and ginger can't really be banned. Once again the MEP, perhaps through no fault of her own, is being tricked).

You may nevertheless want to voice your concerns directly with the European Commission that has the sole right of initiative in the European Union. You can contact the relevant services directly via the following link:

http://ec.europa.eu/health-eu/contact_en.htm

Best regards,

Replied after more than two months. But at least she did reply.

Stated the following : -

My Liberal Democrat colleagues and I believe now, as we believed in 2004 when it went through, that this Directive imposes too heavy a regulatory burden. Unfortunately, the proposals found support within the European Parliament and among EU governments of the time, so our views did not prevail. Indeed the UK (then Labour) government unfortunately accepted it....

Liberal Democrat MEPs felt from the beginning that, while the aim of reducing discrepancies between national markets was a valid one, there were serious dangers of creating an over-bureaucratic system. My LibDem colleague Chris Davies, on the relevant committee, worked closely with associations and manufacturers who would be affected by the legislation, such as the Health Food Manufacturers’ Association and the Alliance for National Health. We were, and remain, very sympathetic to their objectives.

The Liberal Democrat group in the European Parliament therefore tabled amendments to the draft Directive in 2002 to address the problems. Not all our amendments were successful, but some were such as:

• allowing the inclusion of non-herbal ingredients such as vitamins and minerals;
• modifying the definition of a herbal medicinal product to mean those products containing ingredients at pharmacologically active levels;
• clarifying the border between foods and herbs, and ensuring the directive does not apply to food, food supplements or cosmetics.

However, an important amendment designed to allow fast tracking for herbal medicinal products from anywhere in the world with a 30-year period of use – provided that appropriate supporting evidence of safety is provided – was regrettably not approved in the votes in Strasbourg. But at least a simplified registration procedure was secured for traditional products, whereby they would be exempt from safety trials.

Comments from The Finchley Clinic about this reply:

Tke Liberal Democrat sympathy is appreciated. Unfortunately no commitment was made to do what we asked for in our letter. We asked them to use whatever power they had to try to amend (or preferably get rid of) the Directive in order to preserve your right to take herbal medicines.  

 

Dr Charles Tannock (Conservative) - charles.tannock@europarl.europa.eu

Dr Tannock is also a doctor. He is the only one of our MEP's who thinks the directive is a great idea (at least that's what one his lackeys wrote to us, as he did not reply in person), and is necessary to "protect" the public. Three follow up emails explaining why his position was wrong were ignored. His email to us demonstrated a total lack of understanding as to how this directive worked, so we thought if we corrected his misunderstandings his position might change, especially as he is someone who professes to be concerned about public health. However having ignored our emails, we assume he still supports the suppression of your human right to have jurisdiction over your own body. We do not know how much "protecting" Dr Tannock did in his days in practice as a doctor, in order to protect his patients from the conservative estimate of 40,000 deaths per year in the UK alone associated with pharmaceutical drugs, but should Dr Tannock contact us or change his stance with regard to herbal remedies which have a vastly safer overall record than pharmaceuticals, we will be more than happy to amend our comments.

In fairness, Dr Tannock's office did reply to our initial communication almost immediately. This at least showed he has decent manners, which is more than can be said for the following London MEP's.....

 

MEP's who did not reply at all:

The following 2 London MEP's, paid £80,000 per year of your tax payers money were too lazy or disinterested to reply at all. We feel that you have the right to know just how concerned these "representatives" were where it came to actually doing a bit of representing - with your money. If any of them send us a belated reply, we will publish it, and take them off this list. 

Mary Honeyball - mary.honeyball@europarl.europa.eu  (Labour)

Claude Moraes - claude.moraes@europarl.europa.eu  (Labour)

So presumably your right to good health, and right to make decisions for yourself, does not concern them too much. Since you  pay them £80,000 per year of your money (plus lavish expenses) for the privilege of beng ignored, you may like to repay this compliment and consider ignoring their names on the ballot paper when they are up for re-election. With regard to the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive, we enclose their e-mail addresses in case you would like to express your own opinion. Extremely rude though it is not to bother to reply, we do not recommend treating them rudely, as two wrongs do not make a right- so please keep your emails very polite and relevant.