Homeopathic licensing alarms doctors.

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Posted by: "mum2mishka" Fri Sep 1, 2006 8:26 am (PST) http://www.guardian .co.uk/uk_ news/story/ 0,,1862452, 00.htmlHomeopathic licensing alarms doctorsAlok Jha, science correspondentFriday September 1, 2006The GuardianPackaging on homeopathic products will be allowed to describe the illnessesthey claim to be able to treat under a controversial licensing schemeintroduced by the government today. The National Rules System is designed tobring homeopathic remedies into line with licensed medicines - but doctorsand scientists say it will legitimise products that have no scientificevidence to support

their claims.Kent Woods, chief executive of the Medicines and Healthcare ProductsRegulatory Agency (MHRA), the government agency responsible for licensingmedicines and ensuring they are safe, said: "This is a significant stepforward in the way homeopathic medicines are regulated. Products authorisedwill have to comply with recognised standards of quality, safety and patientinformation. "But Liberal Democrat MP Evan Harris, on the Commons science committee, saidthe rules "diluted and polluted" regulation of medicines."The multi-million pound homeopathy industry should not be allowed to makehealth claims for its products without proper evidence of effectiveness, " hesaid.Since 1971, medicines have required scientific data to show that they workto get a licence.Because homeopathic products lacked this evidence, they were not allowed tobe classed as medicines or allowed to put any claims on

packaging aboutconditions they claimed to treat.To get around this lack of evidence, the MHRA will license remedies based on"homeopathic provings", observations of the symptoms (such as watering eyesor headaches) a person gets when given a particular substance. Michael Baum,emeritus professor of surgery at University College London said: "This islike licensing a witches' brew as a medicine so long as the bat wings aresterile."Penny Viner, of the British Association of Homeopathic Manufacturers, saidthe scheme would encourage growth in the range of products on the market,and enhance the consumer's understanding of their benefits". "Our ideal is not the spirituality that withdraws from life but the conquest of life by the power of the spirit." -

Aurobindo.

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