Sir, - Mr John Bourke MPSI (November 23rd) has called the debate on alternative medicines partisan and misinformed. The core of the debate lies in the difference between a natural plant medicine and a synthetic, pharmaceutical product. This distinction is apparently lost on Mr Bourke and his colleagues. Professional herbalists and the ethical health sector have been calling for a separate way to regulate traditional medicines on a European basis for some time now.
The Irish Medicines Board's guidelines are based on a 1965 EEC Directive which was primarily designed to protect the public from disasters such as Thalidomide. It was not designed to suppress traditional plant medicines. Because no separate category has yet been created for traditional medicines, consumers and traditional practitioners will suffer from this crude and belated application of EC law. Of course herbal medicine is effective, and we are pleased that this fact has at last been recognised in Ireland. Mr Bourke appears to be unaware of the many journals, both orthodox and "so-called alternative" (sic), which contain a wealth of safety and efficacy data on many popular herbs.
If public health and safety is the issue here, why not start with paracetamol, a medicine which is implicated in many cases of acute liver failure, and make it prescription-only, rather than pharmacy-confined, as Mr Bourke suggests? We suggest that the Pharmaceutical Society would be more usefully employed in examining some of the questionable practices in the marketing of mainstream pharmaceuticals than in attempting to prevent enlightened consumers from exercising their right to choose. - Yours, etc.,
Helen McCormack, Medical Herbalist, Philipsburgh Avenue, Dublin 3.