Homoeopathic Products

The United Kingdom is awash with a news story talking about new “Superbugs” which can wipe out humanity, and are resilient to all form of Anti Biotics. Realistically we are going to need to look for new methods of fighting Viruses. So what are we going to do? Well, what about Homeopathic medicine? Well, personally I am not so sure. I am not going to go into this in depth (As stated this is not a blog for my personal opinion, this is for things which are quite interesting). So I decided to find out what the policy was for this.

A quick look on what do they know showed that there is something called the “Advisory Board on the Registration of Homoeopathic Products”. It basically looks after the whole of that industry. Now the question that pops up in my head is how do you test the scientific basis of a homeopathic medicine? Now there are PLENTY of sites that look at this issue in more depth, but I am interested more in the processes that the departments have. Guess what I did next? I did this. It is interesting that the steps are on the internet for anyone to pick up. Makes it clear what need to be done and makes you think about what you need to do. At least we have some insight into this industry.

So now that we know this we now need to know what is the process that a company has to go through to be able to able to trade Homoeopathic Products? That is something that I am interested in finding out. Again no one starts a business unless that are going to make money. Won't it be interesting to find out what you have to do to start a business.?

Now who buys this stuff? The NHS? Would they prescribe this to someone? Well let's ask the All Wales Medicines Strategy Group. Would they be able to give some guidance on how they distribute Homeopathic to people? That should be able to show us something on what they do? Surprisingly enough, no. They gave a LOT of evidence on how they distribute medicine, but not homeopathic medicine.

What about the regulation of this? Surely the NHS would have someone sending in some complaints. Probably one of the main NHS watchdogs, probably. So I asked the Aneurin Bevan Community Health Council (CHC) how many complaints that they have had about Homeopathic medicine (Look right down the bottom). None. Makes you think about this stuff that they have never had a complaint. Only more FoI requests will find if there are other issues. In this matter.

What about advertising these products? Could they be advertised fraudulently? It would link in with the statements I said above about the proving their statement. Let's asked the Advertising Standards Authority. WHat do they do, I hear you ask. Well they basically make sure that that what is advertised is true. Famously, they were the ones who stopped the old Guinness adverts saying that “Guinness is good for you”. So what would they do if they found someone making false claims about homeopathic medicine? They referred me to their website and their rulings. A search of their rulings found this one.

The only reason that I chose homeopathic medicine is purely because I found the body regulating it. I just wanted to see what the wider NHS would have done. It is so interesting to see that there is only one body looking at this and concerned in its ability. It goes to show, in some respects, that there is no joined up thinking here. When you ask one body for information they have everything, when you dig a bit deeper, you find there is nothing at all. I wonder how many other issues have not got any other joined up thinking.

PS here is what was said by the Board on the Registration of Homoeopathic Products on what guidance was given to the NHS on Homoeopathic Products. Here is what was said about Homoeopathic Product testing.