Health Care August 1999

UPDATE December 1999

Editor: Sue Lanzon

The Medicines Control Agency is seeking a new regulation which would give them sole power, without consultation or right of appeal, to classify any herbal,vitamin and mineral supplement, aromatherapy oil and homoeopathic remedy as a medicine and thereby demand that each product require a licence. The cost of licensing an individual product is £80,000! It's a virtual certainty that the adoption of this regulation would demolish the health supplement and natural medicines industry overnight and put many alternative practitioners out of business. Most worryingly, it is giving the MCA the power to be a law unto itself, answerable to no-one.

The impetus for this draconian measure is undoubtedly provided by the drug companies who are feeling more and more threatened by the growth in alternative medicine. If this law is passed, it will mean that there will be only one method of health care available - the one that really isn't working, the prescription drugs from your doctor. Hard to believe isn't it, but it's a real probability. This is a massive threat to our freedom as individuals, concerning a fundamental right to choose our own health providers and methods of treatment.

The law cannot get passed before the parliamentary summer recess, which means there is still time to do something to try and stop it.

In the meantime you can write to:

Your MP

Frank Dobson, Secretary of State for Health
House of Commons,
Palace of Westminster

Paul Brittain,
Medicines Control Agency
Market Towers
1 Nine Elms Lane
London SW8 5NQ

Oh, and Tony Blair.

For those of you ex-pats, or residents in other parts of Europe, this is part of a proposed EC directive to regulate dietary supplements and although the UK proposal is presently the most widesweeping, who knows what the implications may be for the rest of Europe if it becomes law.

Medicines Control Agency - Update. 1

Thanks to all of you who wrote in with your support, and pestered our MPs.

The situation has changed considerably in the past few months, which shows that we DO have a voice.

The British Goverment's climbdown, announced on July 16th, contains assurances that all vitamin supplements and herbal remedies currently outside licensing requirements will continue to be subject to food legislation rather than classed as medicines.The staus of homoeopathic remedies will also remain unaffected.

The government also took note of protests against proposals that the MCA would be its own judge and jury in the event of appeals, and has assured us that any Review Panel will be independent of the MCA and not contain any members of MCA staff.

Thirdly, the original proposal that in court proceedings, following a refusal  by a company or individual to comply with the MCA's decision, the MCA decision would be upheld unless the defence could show that the decision was unreasonable, has been changed so that the onus will lie with the MCA to prove its case beyond resaonable doubt, rather than the defence having to do so, (as is usual in a court of law).

Finally, the MCA will be required to provide full reasons for its provisional and final decisions. This requirement will be included in the legislation, rather than just being contained in the guidelines for procedure.

To reiterate a crucial point - these changes have  been implemented due to public protest. The drug companies of the U.S. and Europe will continue to look for ways to undermine the growing need for, and awareness of, alternative medical systems. What threatens them most is the shift that is taking place from a mechanistic view of health care to one in which the individual is empowered to be involved in his or her own healing. If this legislation had proceeded unchallenged, it could have been the thin end of a very large wedge.

healing@physikgarden.com

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