I think I'll concentrate on fighting to defend the NHS and its staff of real doctors.

Codex Alimentarius.

It was mentioned to me. I wasn't sure what I thought. then my sister told me that Holland and Barrett have signs up saying that things like echinacea are being banned. Check out the video on Google videos on Codex by Ian R Crane (his is a better video than the one by the woman from NANP in my opinion) and see what you think - keep an open mind... even if you don't believe everything that's being said, at least think that it could be or some of it could be possible!

I'm not even going to comment on the above comment about the NHS and "real doctors". All I will say is that a lot of the conventional medicines that people use these days have come about from looking at herbal and traditional methods used by tribes for hundreds, thousands of years and then re-made with synthetics. Again, this is mentioned in Ian R Crane's talk.

I don't think I'll spend my time fighting for "real doctors" - they're good when they're stitching people back up and doing surgery... but when they're pumping people full of side-effect-inducing, carcinogenic, inaccurately-animal-tested drugs (4th biggest killer in the UK is side-effects from animal-tested drugs!), well, I don't support that!

I'll stick with my ginger and garlic and herbal (homemade) teas... until the WTO / EU / UK government decide to make those illegal too!

reallying banning echinacea?

thats crazy

HI Emma and Max
Codex whilst awful and needing protest against, will not affect Medical Herbs. It will affect the herbs we use as food and of course to add the ridiculous situation, herbs that are used as medicines are also used as foods.
So who decides if a herb is a medicine, a food or a poison? The MHRA, a Government body, funded largely by the pharmaceutical companies and set up to regulate the pharmceutical drugs.
The EU directive on traditional herbal medicines was enacted into UK law in 2005 and requires all herbal medicines sold in shops to have a very expensive license by 2011. The MHRA decide which products will be granted a license. Thousands of traditional herbal medicines are likely to be illegal by 2011 due to the expense of licensing, reducing the publics choice and accessibility and replaced by products, often not traditional preparations, being classed as herbal medicines produced by large companies, especially pharamceutical multinational companies.
Chris

Many herbal medicines are already restricted or banned. These days you can't even buy kava kava in the UK. The result is that people buy over the internet which can be very hit and miss. I strongly recommend growing your own herbs and learning how to use them. Everything you need is available this way as there are few restrictions on growing plants as ornamentals and nothing to stop you consuming them. Just make sure you know what you are doing especially if you are using potentially poisonous material. Fresh veganically grown herbs (prepared by cold infusion where possible) are what you need for maximum benefit. Certainly beats the animal tested crap the pharmaceutical industry spews out.

Has Indymedia really become a platform for small businesses to gain support in their fight against regulation?

It's a rather sad state of affairs, tho with its increasing lurch towards being an "alternative culture" free-for-all, hardly a surprising one...

There are alot of medicinal herbalists who were the seeds of pharmacy,medicine & who kept herbalism alive for thousands of years, I know some personally dear to me who have paid alot personally to do the training which is equivalent to a doctorate. There does need to be some regulation of companies like Holland & Barret,especially some companies on the internet & afew small herbalists who will sell any snake oil rubbish or "remedies" unverified. Though compared to crimes of companies like Nazi IG Farben- now Bayer, the few snake oil herbalists are literally saints

Is there some kind of clinical assesment that can be used for food & herbs we know are safe_ healing as they have been for thousands of years as opposed to manmade chemicals used by bigger pharma companies that need testing clinically???

Patenting manmade copies of natural drugs,nanotech drugs that need computer simulated testing for decades & vivisecting are definetely bad for science & everyone

Bayer-IG Farben who according to Nuremberg judges were as guilty if not more than Nazis for atrocities at Aushwitz  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IG_Farben . Today Bayer have been trying to sell pesticides internationally that kill bees on contact, these have been banned in Germany& Italy,only organic & cooperative farms are not using them to my knowledge& other cooperative researchers,

 jjdm12@googlemail.com
www.ica.coop