Herbal Remedies or Herbal Rip Off?

From ABC 7:30 Report: Feb. 24th, 2010.

Herbal remedies are not regulated nor tested properly prior to marketing. No quality control exists to prevent dose mismanagement or to identify adulteration with contaminants and poisons.

25% of herbs originating from one Asian source contain Western Medications. This leads to dangerous allergic reactions, cross reaction, herb/drug interactions and a plethora of side effects.

Herbal remedies also contain mercury, arsenic and lead. Arsenic is a metalloid. Lead & mercury are metals. Lead poisoning is devastating. The mercury is not monitored, measured or controlled - nor does it serve any purpose: it is a Contaminant.

More so, it is likely to be Elemental Mercury - not methyl mercury as found in biomass nor ethyl mercury used in the clinical and adultery free preservative Thimerosal. Thimerosal is used as a preservative in many medicinal products, including some vaccination preparations.

This makes a predictable mockery of anti-vaccination claims that vaccines "cause autism" due to containing Elemental Mercury, such that vaccine preventable diseases may be "managed" with herbs. This sad revelation is made worse in that lead poisoning leads to many of the horrors blamed on vaccines by pro-herbal antivaccination lobbyists: convulsions, encephalopathy, nerve damage, CNS developmental problems, etc, etc.
http://www.lead.org.au/fs/fst7.html

These herbal remedies have high potential for Adverse Reactions, Drug Interactions and Side Effects - certain to be misdiagnosed by naturopaths who protect vested interests and will prescribe... Herbs.

In the case of imagined "vaccine dangers" or "vaccine reactions" it is known that pure guesswork [and blame] is the primary variable. incredibly these "reactions" are then treated with demonstrably contaminated herbs - actually causing or exacerbating any health problems.

Finally, Panic Merchants love to exaggerate toxicity reports in order to mount arguments peculiar to their own ideology - usually blaming the presence of one drug for multiple deaths.

It is thus over-due that the TGA vigorously examine the toxicity reports post autopsy for herbal/drug interactions and also for cumulative adulterant poisoning leading to neurological pathology.

More so, strict and exact standards must be enforced by the TGA demanding alternative preparations meet safety standards *before* being marketed to an ignorant and unsuspecting, yet trusting public. Indeed claimed efficacy must be demonstrated as verifiable and falsifiable. Immediate penalties for the unqualified and ideologically focused charlatans who profit from marketing not medicine, are long, long overdue.

See:
University of Adelaide forensic pathologist Roger Byard's media release:
http://www.adelaide.edu.au/news/news37921.html

Economics of Snakeoil by Steve Novella:
http://skepticblog.org/2010/02/22/the-economics-of-snakeoil/

Homeopathy: useless & unethical:
http://bit.ly/cd0WtI

Australian Skeptics expect better from our Pharmacists:
http://bit.ly/cPHf7e
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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• herbal remedies
• CAM
• naturopathy
• homeopathy
• poisons
• TGA
• quality control
• myth
• scam
• pseudoscience