E-PETITION FOR OUR FREEDOM TO USE HERBAL MEDICINES

The UK Government has set up a website inviting individuals to post e-petitions. When a petition reaches 100,000 signatures, it must be discussed by the House of Commons.

As you know, the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive by the European Union entered into force on 30 April 2011. While the Directive sounds "reasonable" in that it offers registration for herbal remedies, such registration is not open to remedies with more than 2-3 ingredients, which therefore eliminates all Chinese herbal remedies. Moreover, even if registration were available, the cost is absolutely prohibitive making it out of reach of small or medium-sized herbal companies.

Although the European Directive is in force and the UK government itself cannot repeal it, it is perfectly within the UK government's right to simply refuse to implement it or to "quietly" ignore it: after all, this is exactly what the majority of European countries are doing (luckily for us).

The following is the text of the e-petition (which need to be kept short):

The Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) by the European Union entered into force on 30 April 2011. This Directive effectively bans perfectly safe herbal medicines taking away the public’s freedom to choose the treatment they want. The Government should announce that it will not implement this needless European Directive.

Click here to see and sign the petition.

If you are in the UK, I would be grateful if you could sign the e-petition and ask your family, friends and patients to do the same: it would be a powerful signal if we could reach the goal of 100,000 signatures.