Save Medicinal Herbs in the EU

We homeopaths practice within the alternative-complementary medicine sphere. What affects other legitimate practitioners also affects us. At this moment, medicinal herbs in the EU are at immense risk, with the vast majority of them about to become unavailable starting April Fool's Day*. (You have to wonder if that date was chosen as a nasty joke.)

All herbs from traditions not native to the EU, such as Chinese, Ayurvedic, and Korean, will be banned. Most from the Europe-based traditions will also disappear because the hoops that must be jumped through, the costs that must be borne, and a frankly antagonistic system are making it almost impossible for them to achieve approval. Since the directive was initiatied in 2004, only a handful have been able to gain approval.

On the first of April, 2011, the banning will start. Products already on store shelves may be allowed to stay, but no new ones can be added. Herbalists will not have access to them, either. Neither will Chinese and other non-EU based practitioners.

A huge portion of the alternative healthcare system will be gutted.

I started a letter-writing campaign to Members of the European Parliament, and thousands have been sent. However, the responses have generally been pathetic, with the most common one being the claim that no one is trying to take herbs away, that the directive is intended only to provide safety to the public.

Therefore, I've started a petition with the goal of reaching a million signatures, the minimum required to present it to the EU. It is focused on the specific directive involved and written in a style that's intended to be clear and specific. It is not simply a feel-good petition. It's goal-oriented.

Please, read a bit more about it and then sign this petition! After that, please get the word out to everyone you know. We are on the verge of losing our most basic rights. This isn't hyperbole. It isn't fear mongering. It's what's happening as we speak.

Anyone who thinks it isn't happening should realize that it's already happened in some places. Thailand has nearly banned garlic, turmeric, and ginger as dangerous! Only those with huge sums of money - like multinational corporations, like Big Pharma - can jump the hoops required to distribute them. That's where we're headed. Let's stop it!

Here are two links about the issue:

EU Petition | Demand Access to Herbs: EU Members of Parliament Don't Care About Health Freedom.

Big Pharma Scores Big Win | Medicinal Herbs Will Disappear in EU

The first link contains several links to the petition.

This is a matter of health freedom and also of basic rights. Please sign!

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*Please note that the correct date is 30 April 2011. The Directive was produced in a manner that was unclear about the date that it takes full effect. The 1 April date comes from the date the Directive was passed. However, that is not its effective date. The correct date is 30 April because it's calculated as 7 years from the date it was published, rather than the date of passage.

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Comment by Viktor Kalocsai on April 30, 2012 at 7:43am: A very good note to the WHY a certain group of people want to take control over herbs. The evidences like this one show the details behind the WHY they do that...and why hemp is banned in most countries...and many other thought provoking dogmas about the herbs/plants.

Comment by Heidi Stevenson on May 11, 2011 at 6:14am: Dr. Geeta Rani Arora,

There is more than one petition on the issue. Can you please sign the one at http://www.gopetition.com/petition/39757.html

This one asks for the repeal of the directive, whereas the others merely ask that it be amended, which still will mean that access to medicinal herbs will be limited.

Thank you! I'm also a homeopath, and believe that this issue concerns us all.

Comment by dr geeta rani arora on May 11, 2011 at 3:54am: i totally agree with the thoughtdebby has quoted ..herbs is another alternative science which is helping lot of people heal and even if i dont practice it ,i strongly feel we should support this cause as otherwise these kind of things will tomorrow also attack on homeopathy ..i have already signed the petetion few days back as i got a mailer and we have given our support by discussing this issue in the editorial of may edition of our journal Homeopathic Heritage(we haev discussed all parameters in the editorial and have dedicated the the may issue for this cause so all the readers also get this information and more and more homeopaths support this cause ..

Comment by sajjadakram on January 8, 2011 at 1:47am: You are right Dr usmani.

Regards.

sajjad.

Comment by Dr. M. A. Usmani on January 8, 2011 at 1:33am: Hi Heidi,

It’s sweet to talk to you after so long a time. I endorse your mission, from the depth of my heart, against the short-sighted EU’s Anti-Herbs Bill.

Sitting in the lap of mother (Nature), and trifling with the bounties she has bestowed upon man; what a wanton child homo-sapiens is!

Every herb is Providence’s comprehensive, specific and balanced prescription for psycho-physical diseases of mankind, unsurpassed by man’s wisdom, knowledge and experience.

Heidi, rest assured herbal applications can never cease. It will only be EU’s loss when they’ll come back to herbal wisdom in repentance, but it would be very late. The loss of herbal experts and the houses of production of herbal medicines would have already suffered a gigantic loss.

Nature is immutable, individuals are ephemeral.

With regards,

Dr. Usmani

Comment by Viktor Kalocsai on December 20, 2010 at 6:12am: Hey everybody,

I just can confirm that in the background (no official announcement) the supply of the Homeopathic remedies in Hungary will be affected by the 2011 EU Act about the Herbs. As a consequence of this spineless act of the Codex Alimentarius Group, Influenzinum was taken from the import list. Non of the major Homeopathic remedies manufacturers' Hungarian representative offices sell it in Hungary anymore, or at least at this moment. I am very curious if this is permanent situation in the importing of this particular remedy and other remedies. There are also other Homeopathic remedies as well that are very difficult to obtain. The tactic of those who serve the evildoers is that they don't speak too much and slowly stopping the import of some dilutions and at the end there will be less and less from the remedies. This way they want to wipe out the Homeopathy from the peoples' mind. The first step in this suggestive activity (i would say lying to people about what is really happening in the backstages) was when the Boiron printed on their leaflets that common note about "the risks and the side effects ...and that you have to consult your physician or pharmacist...", which can be found on every western medicine. It's a clear cut that Homeopathy doesn't have any side effects. Those who want to convince us and confuse the ordinary people that Proving is similar to side effect simply don't tell the truth. Proving is not a side effect. It's similar to stretching activity when one over-stretches his/her muscles. The meaning of risk is also incomparable in this context as Homeopathy does not have side effects and the state of Proving easily diminishes without crippling the Homeopathic remedies users.

If you want to take care of not only yourselves but your friends and others as well, please, don't let this Misleading to be implanted in the peoples' mind. Inform them about what's happening in Hungary and worldwide in the global healthcare business as well as in the food industries (GMO). GMO is one of the initiatives of the Codex Alimentarius Group, which one aim is the total destruction of the alternative medicines for ordinary people.

There are more and more, and more powerful strains of inluenza that have few but very strong negative efffects on peoples' organism and their immune system. Unfortunately and I am very sad that this is the true!

Do they know what the meaning if Love is in real?! Do they familiar with this saying: "Help Ever. Hurt Never."?! Do they really take care of us?!

Viktor

Comment by Debby Bruck on October 28, 2010 at 2:28am: Your welcome. The direct link to petition is also on front page.

Comment by Heidi Stevenson on October 28, 2010 at 1:58am: Thank you, Debby!

Comment by Debby Bruck on October 28, 2010 at 12:23am: Dear Heidi. Thank you for all your efforts. I signed the petition. We need THOUSANDS more to sign. Please twitter and facebook and tell your friends on Linked-In and everywhere.

Comment by Heidi Stevenson on October 27, 2010 at 2:34pm: I looked into Care2, but their petitions do not provide the needed flexibility for an EU petition. They don't provide the ability to collect addresses, nor do they provide the ability to collect the country of the signer. These are required by the EU.

I spent a lot of time researching the requirements for an EU petition, including how it should be written. Then, I spent a lot of time trying to find a site that could handle such a petition, and chose the one I did because it's the only one I could find that meets the requirements. This was not done lightly.