Natural Products Show
Hmm. The Natural Products Show. Not sure what percentage of the products on show this year at Olympia could be deemed “natural”, but suspect it is not that high. I’ve never seen such a vast array of dubious looking vitamin pills, creams, shampoos, goos and unctions, all fabulously packaged in planet-destroying petrochemicals, keenly proffered by twisty-eyed mavens who might just be lizard people from the planet Tharg, in disguise.
There were, of course, a few exceptions. Good to see the Organic Herb Trading Company there, but sad to hear that they are closing down their tincture manufacturing facility because of the THMPD legislation. Good also to talk to Dee Atkinson at Napiers, who is regularly meeting with the people who have created this ghastly piece of legislation, the Medicines and Health Products Regulation Agency. She told me they are busy recruiting people to police the legislation when it is implemented this time next year, and that in all likelihood they are going to start picking off herbs one by one.
I think what she means is this: They will choose a herb, for example, Black Cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa), and will then seek out anyone who is selling it as an unlicensed product in order to stop them from doing so. Whether or not this means that herbalists will be allowed to continue using it as a prescribed herb for their patients is not clear - because it now seems that herbalists are not going to be regulated in any meaningful way. In the best case scenario, people will still be able to access the herb from a herbalist, provided there is some evidence that a consultation has taken place between the customer and the herbalist. In the worst case scenario people will no longer have access to the herb, except where it has been processed and made into a pharmaceutical product, licensed by the MHRA.
Who will benefit from this?
- The MHRA - they get fees from manufacturers of licensed herbal products.
- The pharmaceutical companies - A Vogel, Solgar, Lichtwerpharma (or whatever they’re called these days) and so on - pill pushers in other words.
- Unregulated, illegally trading herbalists, who, because they will now be criminalised, will be charging more for their more efficacious and more genuinely “natural” products.
The original intention with this legislation was to protect the public from unscrupulous traders selling inferior or dangerous products. Fair enough. But….modern life, eh? We end up with a money fest for government and the people who directly finance them with fees. The bounteous gorgeousness of naturally occurring, co-evolving herbs that should be as free as the air are to be controlled by vile, besuited, lizard people from the planet Tharg. Or thereabouts.