Sir, - By deriding all alternatives to conventional medication Ruaidhri Kirwan (November 1st) not only exposes his own ignorance, but also insults the many thousands of intelligent people who, while they may not have studied the copious amounts of scientific data available on the subject, know empirically that self-supplementation has a safe and positive effect on their health. These are the people who are becoming increasingly outraged that their right to choose and use herbal and nutritional supplements is being threatened by the medical establishment.
St John's Wort is known to have absolutely no serious side-effects, unlike, for example, licensed anti-depressants, and its role as an MAO inhibitor is so slight as to be negligible. A trawl through Irish and European records reveals no case of significant problems associated with its use.
Mr Kirwan's partisan attitude, as it reflects orthodox medicine, underlines the urgent need for regulatory bodies such as the Irish Medicines Board to use the expertise of trained herbalists, nutritionists and homeopaths when they seek to regulate the sale of "alternative" supplements and remedies. Unless they do so, the rights of hundreds of thousands of people to take some responsibility for their own wellbeing is, for no sound scientific reasons, seriously compromised. - Yours, etc., Jill Bell,
Ferrypoint, Youghal, Co Cork.
