An article from the Daily Mail in the UK: Prince Charles calls for alternative medicine to be formally regulated.

Prince Charles has clashed with the medical establishment by calling for alternative medicine to be given the official seal of approval.

The Prince, a long-standing supporter of complementary therapies, wants herbalists and acupuncturists to be formally regulated like physiotherapists and osteopaths.

His Foundation for Integrated Health says a system of registration will protect livelihoods under threat from new EU rules on the therapies.

But the Royal College of Physicians says it would confer an air of ‘respectability’ on a branch of medicine that is not proven to work.

The row centres on an EU directive that will from next year ban herbalists, including practitioners of Chinese medicine, from prescribing many treatments unless the law recognises them as health professionals.

The Foundation, which was set up by the Prince of Wales in 1993, says the solution is a system of registration, that would put herbalists on equal footing to physiotherapists and osteopaths. Acupuncturists would also be registered.

A spokesman for the charity said that without the scheme the therapies could be driven underground, and lives put at risk.

He added: ‘The Government is under pressure from a small but vociferous group of scientists who claim that regulation is about recognising professional status rather than protecting the public.

‘That is absolutely wrong. If Government caves in to their demands, public health will be put at risk.

‘Millions of us use herbal medicine – around a quarter of the population have done so at some time in their lives and about one in twelve have consulted a herbalist.

‘The Prince’s Foundation for Integrated Health fears that many will be unwilling to give up the remedies they believe help them, and instead resort to unregulated internet retailers or bogus practitioners.

‘There have been cases where the products they use have been found to be adulterated with unsafe, illegal pharmaceuticals – and to contain lead, mercury or arsenic.’

Dr Michael Dixon, the charity’s medical director, said: ‘No one deserves to die for no better reason than preferring herbal remedies to conventional medicine.’

A spokesman for the Prince said he had recently met Health Secretary Andy Burnham.
He added that one of the Foundation’s main objectives was to ‘safeguard the millions of people who regularly use herbal medicine.’

But the Royal College of Physicians is against statutory regulation on the grounds that it would make such treatments appear ‘credible’.

In a submission to the Department of Health, which is consulting over the possibility of introducing registration, it said that herbalism, in particular, carries ‘significant’ risks.  And registration could ‘increase the possibility of harm’.

David Colquhoun, a professor of pharmacology at University College London, said: ‘Registration is a nonsense.

‘You can’t make sensible rules for registering something until you know if it works or not. There is quite good evidence that most of it doesn’t work.

‘This particular form of registration will give what appears to the public to be an endorsement and that is going to endanger patients.

‘As for Charles, his behaviour is desperately unconstitutional.  The monarchy doesn’t interfere in public affairs but he does it unashamedly.”