MS & Chinese Herbal Medicine

[eclipsemullet]

The is a Chinese herbal medicine shop near me displaying a huge list of ailments treated in the window. One of them is MS. This irks me because a member of my family has MS.

I telephoned out local Trading Standards and told them I wanted it removed as I doubted very much as to the efficacy of whatever they were selling to treat MS. The Trading Standards were powerless to ask them to remove the 'MS' signage.

Should I forget it or what?

Andy
UK

 

[Nichiro]

Have you got a first hand experience of this herbal medicine? Have you found it to be ineffective? Have you asked the shopkeeper to produce evidence of its working successfully?

Remember that chinese is a 6000 year old civilization and they have a system born out of experience.

So stay put and let authorities decide what to do.

 

[eclipsemullet]

Have you got a first hand experience of this herbal medicine? Have you found it to be ineffective?

No first hand experience but it is ineffective, isn't it?

Andy

 

[Emet]

No first hand experience but it is ineffective, isn't it?

Andy

Generally speaking there has never been any evidence to support claims of effectiveness for many, if not most herbal medicines.

Can you tell us what the specific product is?

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Did the trading standards people say why they couldn't act in this case?

 

[eclipsemullet]

Generally speaking there has never been any evidence to support claims of effectiveness for many, if not most herbal medicines.

Can you tell us what the specific product is?

No, but I am tempted to go in and ask them what the product is and what an MS sufferer can expect it to do for them.

Andy

 

[eclipsemullet]

Did the trading standards people say why they couldn't act in this case?

They did but it was a few years ago and I can't recall what reasons they gave.

The bottom lines is the *can't* treat MS.

Andy

 

[Emet]

No, but I am tempted to go in and ask them what the product is and what an MS sufferer can expect it to do for them.

Andy

You really should. I'm not sure what country you're from, but in the US, the DSHEA of the FDA, and the FTC result in a lot of unsubstantiated claims being made:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=6387

 

[catsmate]

Remember that chinese is a 6000 year old civilization and they have a system born out of experience.

So stay put and let authorities decide what to do.

Which is why life expectancy was so long and medical problems so rare when China relied on "traditional chinese medicine".......... Oh wait
Old nonsense is still nonsense, not that much of TCM is that old anyway.

 

[eclipsemullet]

I went into the shop today under the guise of doing some research for a family member. The chinese lady said the person "would need to come in themselves" as "it depends on what stage the MS is at". But it maybe that they need "some acupuncture or some tablets".

Should I continue with my fight to have the sign removed?

 

[Ocelot]

You could try the ASA If the sign is visible from the street it's an advert and shouldn't contain claims that can't be justified.

I'm also interested in why the Trading Standards wouldn't act. Perhaps you should ask again, this time reminding them that under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Practices, "Falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction or malformations." is explicitly banned.

Perhaps the person who handled your complaint was under the impression that TCM can cure MS and so you should provide your reason for thinking that's not true. The burden of proof under the act is for the trader to demonstrate that their claims aren't false however they won't ask the trader to do so just on the whim of any old complainant. You have to provide TS with a reason to believe that the claim is false.

You may also want to look at the other diseases they claim to treat. It is prohibited to advertise a cure to the public for many diseases under the 1917 Venerial Diseases Act, the 1939 Cancer Act, the 1941 Pharmacy, the 1968 Medicines Act and the 1994 Medicines (Advertising) Regulations .

I would have thought that advertising a treatment for MS to the public would be covered under 1994 act listing "Serious neurological and muscular diseases" in its schedule of "Diseases in Respect of which Advertisements to the Public are Prohibited"

 

[Mojo]

You could try the ASA If the sign is visible from the street it's an advert and shouldn't contain claims that can't be justified.

Areas of complaint outside our remit

Shop window displays

Misleading claims in shop window displays should be reported to your local trading standards department. Trading standards departments do not, however, look into complaints about taste and decency, so if you find a shop window display offensive you should take it up with the shop in the first instance. You may also want to raise it with your local representatives such as a councillor or your MP. We can consider complaints about sales promotions that appear in shop window displays.

If the shop has any leaflets that can be taken away, the ASA's remit certainly covers them.

 

[Mojo]

I'm also interested in why the Trading Standards wouldn't act. Perhaps you should ask again, this time reminding them that under the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Practices, "Falsely claiming that a product is able to cure illnesses, dysfunction or malformations." is explicitly banned.

If they're just listing a whole lot of conditions without any explicit claims, that may not be enough to prove that they are actually making a claim that they can treat it - OK, the intent is clear, but it might not be enough to satisfy the burden of proof. A prosecution would have to prove that they were making misleading claims.

The ASA would take the view that listing the conditions implies a claim of treatment, and they put the burden of proof on the advertiser to substantiate any claim they make.

 

[Ocelot]

I sit corrected.

 

[eclipsemullet]

I have logged a complaint with my local Trading Standards Dept.

 

[ria_rokz]

Thank you eclipsemullet. You've done what you can. The safety of most herbs in relation to MS has not been studied and it is suspected that some, like echinacea, may actually stimulate the immune system and trigger an attack. However, this is still also unknown, just a caution. As a person with MS, I know how much a relapse messes up my life and without some proof of safety and efficacy I won't touch the stuff with a 10 foot pole. Better the devil you know than the devil you don't know.

 

[Safe-Keeper]

Have you got a first hand experience of this herbal medicine?

You're confusing subjective and objective statements. "Oreo Dream cookies taste fantastic" is a subjective statement based on personal experience. "An Oreo Dream cookie contains this many calories" is not. You hear all the time that some treatment works because "I've tried it, and/or my friends have, and it worked for us". This is not how you ascertain whether a treatment is effective, because you are just one out of seven billion people on the planet, and your experience may be an exception, a coincidence, or a placebo effect. To determine whether a treatment really works, you have to do controlled scientific studies with control groups. These studies then need to be peer-reviewed by other researchers. Anecdotes from satisfied customers prove nothng.

Remember that chinese is a 6000 year old civilization and they have a system born out of experience.

The Chinese also used mercury to treat a variety of illnesses. Being an old civilization doesn't give you any authority on, well, anything.

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

I tend to file claims like this under 'plausible but unconfirmed'. One of the folks I know is an ethnobotanist at the PHD level, and works for a pharmaceutical company. I've talked with him about the process they go through when looking for new drugs, and the plants a culture considers medicinal or poisonous are a very good place to start, as they're already sorted into the category of 'things that are thought to have an effect'. The cultural mumbo-jumbo that goes along with that, like Chi, meridians, doctrine of signatures, hot and cold, the four humors, is irrelevant to the fact that the culture has set aside a plant because they think it does something that other plants do not. The process of determining what, if anything, they really do, is where he comes in.

The point is that I'm not automatically going to believe or disbelieve such a claim; there are plenty of examples of real and effective medicines derived from plants, and the probability that something the chinese think cures MS might actually do so is nonzero. It just hasn't been confirmed or disproved. Do more research, and keep an open mind to the possibilities.

 

[Rolfe]

"Chinese Herbal Medicine" is responsible for a number of endangered species becoming even more endangered because of the "traditional belief" (rooted in sympathetic magic) that all sorts of things like rhino horn, bear bile and tiger parts have medicinal properties. These are "herbs", by the way. The animal suffering involved in their harvesting is incalculable.

I wouldn't touch this woo-woo with a barge pole.

Rolfe.

 

[Capsid]

Agreed Rolfe, the farming of moon bear bile is barbaric.

http://www.ifaw.org/ifaw_internatio...ears_from_lives_of_torture_--_china/index.php