WHO Issues Guidelines for Herbal Medicine: Press Exaggerates Warnings

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The World Health Organization is engaged in a strategy of helping traditional medicine (TM) and complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) to emerge and gain recognition as a valid alternative to our pharmaceutically controlled western-style medical system. One of the steps in this WHO program is to develop a consumer information strategy.

A report released by WHO in January 2004 - "Guidelines on Developing Consumer Information on Proper Use of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine" informs governments what steps they should take to promote these relatively safe alternatives to pharmaceutical medicine.

Unfortunately the WHO's presentation of the report last week led to a spate of articles on the horrors of herbs, although the report itself says no such thing. We were treated to headlines like "WHO Warns on Unsafe Use of Alternative Medicines", "Who warns of Dangers of Traditional Medicines" and similar, although the report itself does hardly allow such a conclusion. How did the distortion come about?

Here is what I found:

In May 2002, the World Health Organization has launched a global strategic action to "provide a framework for policy to assist countries to regulate traditional or complementary/alternative medicine (TM/CAM) to make its use safer, more accessible to their populations and sustainable."

According to this WHO strategy document, about 80% of the people in Africa use traditional medicine as their normal everyday means of healthcare. In western countries, the use of herbal and other traditional alternatives is on the upswing. 75% of the population in France has used complementary medicine at least once; in Germany, 77% of pain clinics provide acupuncture; and in the United Kingdom, expenditure on complementary or alternative medicine stands at US$ 2300 million per year.

As a part of this strategy to help make complementary and alternative medicine more accessible to people everywhere, WHO has recently released "Guidelines on Developing Consumer Information on Proper Use of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicine". That document is available for download as a PDF file from this page on the WHO site.

Press exaggerates warnings

Instead of reporting on what really happened - that the World Health Organization is working to help traditional medicine emerge and take its rightful place as a valid alternative to pharma dominated western-style medicine, the press seized on the wholly incidental warnings and came out with headlines such as "WHO Warns of Dangers of Traditional Medicines" (Voice of America) and "Who warns on Alternative Medicine" (BBC News). Reuters ran a piece titled "WHO Warns on Unsafe Use of Alternative Medicines" starting out with a screamer: The World Health Organization (WHO) wounded the alarm about the unregulated and often unsafe use of alternative medicines ranging from acupuncture to herbal medicines and food supplements.

Not without some help, I should add. One Dr. Vladimir Lephakin, the World Health Organization's assistant director-general for health technologies and pharmaceuticals, speaking from the WHO's Geneva headquarters, is extensively quoted as warning of interactions between the two kinds of medicines. He told a news briefing that "...it is not true that traditional medicines are good for everybody, every time in big quantities. This is a big mistake." He also said that "there are a lot of examples of people who not only suffer but die because of drug interaction or non-proper use of traditional medicine".

In Denmark and Sweden, reporters linked the WHO report with warnings against Ginkgo Biloba, a herb with anti-oxidant and memory enhancing properties that originally came to us from China, and the Swedish Expressen even headlined its article: "Two dead because of natural substance". The source quoted was one professor Ralph Edwards of the WHO's Uppsala Monitoring Center who, when asked by phone, categorically denied having warned against Ginkgo or cited deaths. the Danish Ekstrabladet and Danish TV carried similar warnings: "WHO warns after deaths" and "Natural substance can be life threatening".

Whether the false reports and exaggerations came from WHO's own strategically placed pharmaceutical people or whether the press is to blame is not quite clear yet, but for sure the opportunity was good for WHO's Lephakin to call for "strengthening control of food supplements in all countries".

What does the WHO report really say?

Well, you can find the PDF file here.

On page 2 and 3 of the report we find that

"TM/CAM therapies may cause fewer adverse events than conventional therapies such as treatment with conventional medicines (pharmacotherapy). For example, a National Institute of Health (NIH) panel issued a consensus statement on acupuncture issued a consensus statement on acupuncture stating that the incidence of adverse effects from acupuncture are extremely low and often lower than for conventional treatments."

"Another reason why patients turn to TM/CAM for complementary care is the increasing cases of chronic and debilitating diseases for which there is no cure. Scientific studies of several TM/CAM therapies show that their use is effective, e.g. for HIV/AIDS and cancer patients. As a result, UNAIDS is advocating collaboration with TM practitioners in AIDS prevention and care in sub-Saharan Africa."

"The advantages of TM/CAM include its diversity and flexibility; its availability and affordability in many parts of the world; its widespread acceptance in low- and middle- income countries; its comparatively low cost; and the relatively low level of technological input required. As a result, TM/CAM therapies have the potential to contribute to a better health care system in many countries."

Does that sound different from the press reports? It gets better. When talking about the risks involved in TM/CAM, the report states, among other things

"It is important to note that while TM/CAM procedure-based therapies are relatively safe, accidents do occasionally occur, for example when TM/CAM practitioners are not fully trained; when practitioners do not follow the professional code of ethics; or when the treatment is not adjusted or modified according to the condition or constitution of the patient."

The report advocates (page 7 to 9) that some important aspects should be given further consideration:

Quality control of herbal medicines

Development of reliable treatment guidelines

Training and qualified practice for TM/CAM practitioners

Collaboration between conventional health care providers and TM/CAM practitioners

Communication between TM/CAM consumers and their conventional health care providers and TM/CAM practitioners as well as

Organization of TM/CAM practitioners.

In chapter 2, Development of Consumer Information, the report says that "it is important that information strategies provide a well-balanced message containing reliable, well-supported information tailored to the specific local context." Well - the press reports about this WHO project on TM/CAM could hardly have been more distorted.

At a time when people get sick in droves from the neurotoxic sweetener aspartame, when mercury in vaccines has led to an epidemic of autism, when the pharmaceutically controlled western medical system has become the major cause of death in the US, it is hardly proper to look for the splinter in the eye of alternative medicine, while the beam in western medicine's own eye is so appallingly evident that we have hundreds of thousands of deaths every year caused by conventional medicine and its pharmaceutical remedies, not to speak of bankrupt health budgets to pay for the mayhem.

See related articles:

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EU Commissioner Byrne: No Zero Risk Society

Lipitor: Side Effects And Natural Remedy

CDC Knew: Mercury in Vaccines Induces Autism

Risk Free Vitamins - How Safe is Safe Enough?

Medical system is leading cause of death and injury in US

Here is a very informative comment on the WHO reporting from Jenny Thompson of the Baltimore Health Sciences Institute:

WHO Let the Dogs Out

Health Sciences Institute e-Alert

July 6, 2004

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Dear Reader,

You have to love synchronicity. Sometimes it provides good theater.

Just a few days ago, for instance, the World Health Organization (WHO) let the metaphorical dogs out with the release of new guidelines for developing consumer informa