Positive Health Online

As professional health practitioners and serious users of complementary medicine, I imagine that the majority of Positive Health readers may not respond well to massively overblown, tabloid-like headlines laden with conspiracy, doom-laden tales of woe and catastrophe. I usually give these a fairly wide berth myself, often distrusting their exaggerated claims and lack of substantiation.

However, I am exhorting all Positive Health readers and everyone else concerned about the future of natural medicine to read and heed the Column by Robert Verkerk PhD – Wake Up Now To the Global Threat To Natural Healthcare – in this issue (see page 26). We have been regularly publishing reliable updates about the EU Supplement Directive, since Mike Abraham PhD's groundbreaking feature in Issue 74 March 2002; however the entire situation is coming to a head with legal cases to be heard at the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg, probably in 2005.

It is not an exaggeration to state that critically important decisions regarding the availability of nutritional and herbal supplements will be decided in these court cases. For, if the EU Supplement Directive remains in law in its current configuration, not only will hundreds of important health-promoting nutrients be banned from sale, but also, and perhaps even more importantly, a dangerous precedent will have been set enabling the EU to effectively ban large swathes of nutrients across Europe and to prevent the future availability of innovative nutrients and herbs from being developed and sold as food supplements.

There is also nothing overblown about saying that there is an imminent global threat to natural healthcare converging on the UK from all directions – the EU and internationally, from CODEX. And, as stated in Dr Verkerk's column, the European Commission is starting to focus on the Bioenergy Medicine fields, with the possibility that certain devices be removed from sale until further trials, probably prohibitively expensive for small manufacturers, be carried out.

It beggars belief that the UK and European governments could even contemplate banning important, non-toxic healthcare nutrients and herbal supplements, as further exposed in Dr June Butlin's column The Importance of Integrative Health Care (see page 34)… "the medical profession is still not paying enough attention to how nutrients influence the body, and continues to forge forwards in its ability to diagnose illness, perform surgical procedures and patent more and more drugs with their never ending list of side effects, which treat the symptoms, but not the cause(s)…"

In the second part of Dr Nicholas Calvino DC's Integrative Medicine for Colon Cancer, the author expounds, with full reference to the scientific literature, the cancer prevention and treatment advances of a variety of nutrients, including Modified Citrus Pectin (MCP) Fibre, the antioxidant bioflavonoid Quercetin, Bindweed Extract Convolvulus arvensis, Omega-3 Fatty Acids, Enzymes and the potent anti-cancer herb Artemisinin. This three-part feature is a must read for all wishing to keep up-to-date with advances of nutritional elements in colon cancer treatment (see page 37).

Furthermore, the Research Updates section (see pages 43-46) reviews the inverse correlation between selenium intake and cancer incidence. It is a pity that the most bioavailable forms of selenium are on the banned EU lists.

Perhaps, even more incredibly, in light of the above controversy, is Paula Mullin's feature Aromatherapy Used On a Stroke Rehabilitation Unit (see page 28) in which the author details how essential oils are clinically used in the Stroke Units at Guy's and St Thomas' Hospital NHS Trust. With stroke being one of the 'Cinderella' illnesses, under-resourced and under-prioritized within the NHS, the benefits of aromatherapy are clearly observed in the article and case studies presented.

One has to ask what is the real agenda of the government and EU Commission when they seek to ban natural, non-toxic forms of health-enhancing herbs and nutrients while permitting highly toxic, even life-threatening drugs and medical procedures (40,000 people die every year in the UK due to medical mishaps – four times more deaths than from all other types of accident, with a further 280,000 people suffering from non-fatal drug-prescribing errors, overdoses and infections).

It is in all our interests to support the campaign of the Alliance for Natural Health (www.alliance-natural-health.org) and fight for, to the best of our ability, efforts to overturn these draconian measures. At the same time, we all need to 'walk our talk', adopt natural health and lifestyle measures to maintain optimal health, and support excellence in the training and standards of all practitioners across the spectrum of complementary medicine.