another view re SR

[Guest guest]

Hi

- thank you for the the info re facts and fiction - really helpful.

Please find below copy of an email I found really helpful from another email

group to which I subscribe, thought some people mind find it informative

If SR doesn't happen, and we were told at the NIMH's AGM that it is now

" unlikely to go ahead " , then continuing to state that herbalists are posing a

danger to the public, as the pro-SR campaign is doing, actually does nothing but

put our profession at risk, as the government may think it needs to do something

about this danger that herbalists say exists, but not by regulating herbalists;

instead they might go and make herbal medicine 'GP-only'.

In fact the government cannot regulate herbalists, as the Report of the Working

Group on Extending Professional Regulation makes clear (the public consultation

was delayed for over a year to allow this Report to be produced): it says that

candidates for regulation must have an evidence-base for their practice, in

order to maintain public confidence in regulated professionals. When we were

told at the AGM that the " big hitters " had entered the arena and objected to the

Steering Group's proposals, this was undoubtedly referring to the medical

profession, who as we know have always said there is no evidence for what we do,

and who are against the SR of herbalists on the basis that it would give

credibility to a profession that has no evidence-base for its practice (which is

true, in the terms they and the government use): there is no way the government

will regulate herbalists if the doctors do not want it, otherwise they would

have a revolt on their hands.

I would urge all pro-SR people to think again about the possible danger they are

putting our profession into by continuing to say that there is a risk to the

public out there in the form of dangerous herbalists, particularly when there is

no accumulated evidence, only anecdote, to support this: any risk can only be

potential and not actual until it is supported by evidence.

Philip