Ayurveda Products UK

At the 28th March meeting, entitled Symposium on Ayurveda and Herbal Medicine: Looking Beyond April 2011, ANH-Intl’s Dr Robert Verkerk and Adam Smith joined a distinguished panel of Ayurveda experts and practitioners, MPs and High Commissioners to discuss the THMPD and options for resistance. The UK medicines regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), is to be applauded that it sent its Head of Herbal Medicine Policy, Mr Richard Woodfield, to be grilled by the audience.

Lord King of West Bromwich

After an introduction from Amarjeet Bhamra of Save Herbal Medicine, Lord King of West Bromwich opened the meeting. Lord King later committed himself to the second resolution noted above – a proposal that was greeted warmly by the audience and carried unanimously.

The scope of the threat to Ayurveda

ANH-Intl’s own Dr Robert Verkerk spoke on What is the nature and scale of the problem caused by EU and UK regulatory change for Ayurveda? He began with a statement that most of the attendees could readily agree with: “You can’t help feeling that this is a problem born out of a Western reductionist mindset that is being imposed on a cultural regime that it doesn’t understand“. This reductionism extends to the dismemberment of the Ayurvedic whole into its constituent parts, such as yoga, meditation and panchakarma, and sees further fruition in the products being registered under the THMPD: “They are generally speaking single herbs, they are generally speaking alcoholic or acetone extracts…80% of the products registered in the UK don’t contain any plant material whatsoever: they contain isolated fractions, phytopharmaceutical forms embedded in a pharmaceutical matrix.” A far cry from the watery decoctions and whole-plant materials so often used in traditional systems like Ayurveda and TCM.

Dr Robert Verkerk, the Alliance for Natural Health International

Dr Verkerk went on to explain that huge numbers of Ayurvedic and TCM products “fall between two stools” of European medicines and novel foods legislation and EU Member State food and food supplements law. From 1st May 2011, herbal products that are excluded from the THMPD or novel foods regulations, and which are no longer considered food supplements by Member States will be considered unlicensed medicines, and will become illegal. Dr Verkerk summed up the inherent problem with such an approach: “Outside of the European framework, there is no clear distinction between what is a food and what is a medicine. It is an imposition created by European law. If you are a medicine, you suddenly need to provide a massive range of data, [making] it [very] difficult to comply with.”

There are considerable flaws in the THMPD and how it is being implemented, said Dr Verkerk, which are covered in more detail here. One problem is the use of single biomarkers to determine the stability of herbal products, and Dr Verkerk revealed that he had nearly asked Mr Woodfield, “How do you prevent a fraudulent medicine being licensed under [the THMPD]?” In fact, “We already know that some companies…are ‘topping up’ products with biomarkers…there is very good reason to believe that the THMPD…does not guarantee that a fraudulent product can’t be put on the market”.