In a letter published in this week’s BMJ, Professor David Colquhoun from University College London says the MHRA “has made a mockery of its own aims” by allowing Arnica 30C pills to be labeled “a homeopathic medicinal product used with the homeopathic tradition for the symptomatic relief of sprains, muscular aches, and bruising or swelling after contusions.”

This label should be illegal, he says, because the pills contain no trace of the ingredient on the label, but this deceit has been allowed through a legal loophole for a long time now. He points out that if you sold strawberry jam that contained not a trace of strawberry you’d be in trouble.

But he can see no such loophole that allows manufacturers of Arnica 30C to evade the consumer protection laws which ban “falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses” and which apply to the way that “the average consumer” will interpret the label.

Parliament.

Just more proof that the country is run by nitwits. What an embarrassment! Homeopathy given an official stamp of approval as a medically valid treatment. I thought I’d never see the day.

I don’t think there will be any huge restriction here because the cat is out of the bag. I do not think other countries will be able to get away with fear-based bans either. Even Germany, which is normally ripe for extremism from their Green Party has not seen national restrictions gain huge support. Germany is a big food exporter and enough realize they won’t be competitive if they don’t embrace this.

There was some idiot from Scottland who went to Africa with a big group to try to convince the African governments not to accept food aid that was not guaranteed GM free. One or two countries agreed it was ‘too dangerous’ and bad for health, apparently thinking it would be destructive to everything. They refused a large shipment of food aid which was already in transit as an end product for famine relief. In my opinion, those people should be in front of a human rights crimes tribunal.

        DV82XL said:

Beyond the obvious fact that GM food is not bad just because it is GM, whereas a homeopathic product is worthless because in reality nothing is there, the fact remains that all of the anti GM rules everywhere in the E.U. are essentially protectionism in nature. They are less concerned about the safety of foodstuffs as they are with protecting internal markets for their farmers. While this is stupid, it is nevertheless founded on some logic, approving a homeopathic product, know to be devoid of any medicinal content is criminally negligent.

Many of the pieces of legislation (arguably most) are based on some form of protectionism of producers, but I find this still offensive for a number of reasons. Not the least of these is the fact that they are sold as a safety issue and under the guise of Gm crops being bad for the enviornment or unhealthy. This is a lie. Good legislation should be supported for its own reasons and if you have to resort to lies to get it passed then there’s a problem with it. Also, it creates unnecessary fear of a useful technology.

The other thing is that you really can’t fight something like this. It might be to your detriment in the short term but trying to keep a new technology of value down and put the genie back in the bottle is a losing proposition. Any technology which has significant worth will be adopted eventually and trying to stop it only assures you’re the last one to benefit from it.

One issue I have with GM crops (which is in no way related to the actual science of it or the end product) is that they are increasingly trying to get protection for it under things like the DMCA and basically get unlimited rights to restrict a developed product for an unlimited period of time. Methods for genetically modifying plants, IMHO, should be protected by patent law and not general purpose intellectual property law. Patent law is designed for intellectual property related to R&D and technical developments.

A patent is for a limited period of time (depending on the country) usually less than 20 years. This is enough time to make a fair amount of money on a product but insures that you don’t get control of it forever. Since the patent applies from the products development (Not the final market approval) this would even less for something like GM crops. Also, patent law is pretty good about restricting claims to a narrow technical method. You can’t stop others from doing the same thing you do by developing an alternate approach to the same end. Also, it only gives you the right to the production of the product and does not stop others from using your product in a new manner (such as aftermarket modifications).

But that’s another issue entirely. Copyright laws have been far overextended into technical matters that they really should not apply to. We need a good overhaul of intelectual property law to cut back on missuse of product rights.

        Bruce said:

RBR, this policy is really silly, but I do like how the UK has taken a very cautious approach with GM food, so it’s not all bad for you. Here in the US we spent the last eight years moving full speed towards a total Genetically modified food supply. But the Democrats at the state level are working towards some restrictions on GM foods, and hopefully we can use the UK as a model for national regulation.

Beyond the obvious fact that GM food is not bad just because it is GM, whereas a homeopathic product is worthless because in reality nothing is there, the fact remains that all of the anti GM rules everywhere in the E.U. are essentially protectionism in nature. They are less concerned about the safety of foodstuffs as they are with protecting internal markets for their farmers. While this is stupid, it is nevertheless founded on some logic, approving a homeopathic product, know to be devoid of any medicinal content is criminally negligent.

http://www.siamc.ch/uploads/files/Schlussbericht_PEK.pdf

http://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/politics/internal_affairs/Biometric_passport_scrapes_through_at_ballot_box.html?siteSect=1511&sid=10708166&cKey=1242631051000&ty=st

if you read the document, which was the scientific “basis” of the referendum (pg 15-17, there is a summary in english) they are admitting that these “medicines” don’t work.

in my opinion thi is very sad. europe is the place where modern science was born, now it’s becoming the grave.

        Bruce said:

RBR, this policy is really silly, but I do like how the UK has taken a very cautious approach with GM food, so it’s not all bad for you.

Here in the US we spent the last eight years moving full speed towards a total Genetically modified food supply. But the Democrats at the state level are working towards some restrictions on GM foods, and hopefully we can use the UK as a model for national regulation.

Of course not all UK policies are bad. I’d say the vast majority of them are very good and purposeful and I don’t think the country is an example of bad government, even if the government makes some very bad decisions from time to time. I don’t think that excuses this. Of course it could be worse, but it could be better too.

Genetically modified food policy is not too bad and the major genetically engineered food crops have already in use for years. The approval system may not be perfect, but fungi resistant crops are in wide use and most of the crop types become avaliable here no more than a few years after full introduction elsewhere. There has not been a lot of domestic development here compared to the US or Japan, but maybe that will change.

There are of course the scare campaigns to get it banned or heavily restricted but I don’t see them working. People are mostly aware of the fact that they’ve been eating this food for a while. If you want an example of somewhere where the scare tactics have worked you could look at the Netherlands which has all but banned genetic engineered products. I’m sure this will change as they become more aware that they have shot themselves in the foot.