Rosemary Cottage Clinic - Herbal Medicine, Massage, Counselling

Hypericum speeds up wound healing

nospam@example.com (Afifah Hamilton) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:40:08 +0000

Clinical trial shows hypericum lotion improves wound healing and scar formation following cesarean.

St John's Wort (Hypericum perforatum) has been popularised by the press as a herb for treating depression - for which it is very effective - but this is just one the many uses we herbalists put it to, so it is nice to see a study confirming one of its other uses: promoting wound healing.

Applied externally to a wound, as a cream or oil, hypericum will promote rapid healing and minimise scarring. I often use it in conjunction with calendula which promotes skin growth.

In the trial in question, patients that had recently had cesarean section births were given hypericum lotion, a placebo lotion or nothing at all. The group using hypericum had significantly better wound healing, and reduced scarring. They also reported less pain and pruritis (itching). The placebo lotion was no better than the control group who had no lotion at all, clearly demonstrating the effectiveness of the hypericum.

The authors conclude: "Topical application of H. perforatum is safe and can facilitate cesarean wound healing and minimize formation of scar and its pain and pruritus." The study was carried out by Samadi S et al, at Mashhad University of Medical Sciences, Iran, and published in the Journal of Alternative and Complement Medicine, January 2010
[link to study abstract]

In practice I use hypericum cream and oil with excellent results on many kinds of wound, not just cesarean. I look forward to researchers extending their studies in the near future and trialling hypericum on other wounds!

Chamomile trial positive for anxiety

nospam@example.com (Afifah Hamilton) — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 11:12:34 +0000

A new study demonstrates what herbalists have known all along - that chamomile is clinically effective in treating anxiety.

In the study patients with mild to moderate generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) received either chamomile or placebo. Those that received the chamomile treatment were found to have a significant reduction in the severity of their GAD.

The reserchers conclude that chamomile extract is effective for treating mild to moderate GAD. The study was caried out by Amsterdam JD et al at the Depression Research Unit, University Science Center, Philadelphia and published in August 2009. [abstract]

Chamomile has, of course, long been prescribed by herbalists to help with anxiety, aid relaxation and soothe the stomach. Its benefits are immortalised in child folklore in The Tale of Peter Rabbit where Mrs. Rabbit gave her son, Peter chamomile tea after a close shave with Mr McGreggor. "One table-spoonful to be taken at bedtime."

Bad Science - conning us all

nospam@example.com (Afifah Hamilton) — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 21:42:19 +0000

As a herbalist I have to put up with considerable attack from 'authorities' that claim to be the holders of scientific truth. Herbal medicine is regularly rubbished by the medical establishment and dismissed as superstion, witchcraft or alchemy. They accuse us of not having the scientific studies to prove efficacy or safety, ignoring entirely the simple facts that (a) we do not have the funding to do extensive studies like the pharmaceutical companies and (b) there is not one documented case of a herbalist causing death or even injury, yet there are some 90000 patient deaths per year linked to hospital errors. Of course our detractors know this, and are trying to rubbish us by using their power and position and are not interested in real science at all.

So, I was pleased to find the following quotation from professor Henry Bauer Emeritus of Chemistry and Science, Virginia Polytech (2004), which sums up the position succinctly:

"Minority views on technical issues are largely absent from the public arena. Increasingly corporate organization of science has led to knowledge monopolies, which, with the unwitting help of uncritical mass media, effect a kind of censorship. Since corporate scientific organizations also control the funding of research, by denying funds for unorthodox work they function as research cartels as well as knowledge monopolies. Science is now altogether different from the traditional disinterested search, by self-motivated individuals, to understand the world."

The following recent articles are good examples of how the knowledge-cartels with the media's collaboration smuggly adopt the scientific high ground:

Herbalism Kill or Cure? - Independent 5 January 2010

This article clearly over-emphasises the 'dangers' of herbal medicine and questions the scientific basis for their benefits. A very good debate follows the article and makes worthwhile reading - at one point a herbal detractor (zeno001) gives an example of the dangers of herbal medicine, but the link leads to a government safety warning for a chinese herbal product contaminated with pharmaceutical drugs. Clearly it is the pharmaceuticals, not the herbs that are dangerous!

A spanner in the herbal works - Nigel Hawkes, freelance journalist, BMJ, 21 December 2009 (needs subscription to get the whole article)

In his article Nigel Hawkes seeks to undermine herbal medicine, comparing it to alchemy. However he does show that the Royal College of Surgeons has done a U-turn and no longer supports Herbalists becoming statutorily regulated. Originally they saw it as a way to reduce the chance of unqualified herbalists 'harming patients', but now they think that it would 'Confer a legitimacy that they do not have', ie threaten their position! At least one of the people commenting on this article was willing to try and put the record straight: link

The new climate change scandal - Express, 18 January 2010

OK, so this article is not herbal, but it still shows how financial interest and power can lead to compromised science at the highest level of one of the world's most respected scientific bodies. Like the climate-gate scandle last year you get the feeling that these people 'know' they're right, so don't apply the same rigor to their own practice that they demand of the rest of us.

Swine flu risk - are we being manipulated?

nospam@example.com (Afifah Hamilton) — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:27:44 +0000

This was meant to be the pandemic they had been waiting for.

The flu virus, science tells us, continually mutates and sooner or later will create a pandemic on the scale of the 1918 outbreak which killed 50 million. Around the world scientists have been waiting, preparing for the inevitable.

Then in May 2009 swine flu emerged and they thought it could be the big one. After all, unlike the bird flu scare that preceeded it, swine flu really existed as a human to human transmission, and had killed an estimated 176 in Mexico.

By 11 June 2009 swine flu was declared a level 6 pandemic by the WHO, with predicitions of thousands of deaths to come - in fact, Sir Liam Donaldson, "bandied about any figure that came into his head, settling on "65,000 could die", peaking at 350 corpses a day" (See Guardian article).

National vaccination campaigns were being planned in many countries and governments raced to stockpile limited supplies of the vaccines. At the height of the frenzy there was tentative talk of 'mandatory vaccination' and even the more sinister question of whether 'the rights of the child to receive the benefits of the vaccine are greater than the rights of the parent to refuse' - an extreme, anti-parent, anti-liberal view that arose worryingly fast as public fear was being raised.

With fewer than expected cases and deaths in the summer people started questioning the rhetoric. We were told to prepare for a flare up as the winter took hold, but then it all went quiet. Right in the middle of the 'flu season', when it should have been at its worst the disease did not escalate as expected. The latest figures on swine flu show a “relatively stable picture” across Scotland, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon has said. The same is true across the UK as a whole. Yesterday the BBC reports that "Weekly government briefings about swine flu have been abandoned, a signal that the crisis is considered to be easing."

Not that swine flu has not gone away, it is still killing, 13,554 across the world have died to date (the Independent) but this is not what we were led to fear, and well below annual seasonal flu deaths and nothing like the figures bandied about in the early days.

So was the over-reaction mearly a sensible precaution on the part of the health authorities? Or was there some deliberate manipulation going on?

This week, New Scientist reports that 14 governments of the Council of Europe are complaining that hey have been duped, charging that:

"Pharmaceutical companies have influenced scientists and official agencies... to alarm governments" in order to "promote their patented drugs and vaccines". Countries ... are now trying to limit orders and sell or give away vaccine, as demand is low.

Meanwhile, the manufacturers are laughing all the way to the bank, with British drug maker GlaxoSmithKline posting sales of its swine flu vaccine products totalling £835 million. in the fourth quarter of 2009.

Whenever a vaccination campaign is launched there seems to be an increase in the number of false positive cases being reported. H1N1 was no different. At the height of the panic in early autumn 2009 a CBS News investigation discovered that of the many reported cases of swine flu in the USA fewer than 2% were actually H1N1 swine flu when tested, and that 83% of reported cases were not flu at all! The idea that reported cases were deliberately allowed to appear high is strengthened by the fact that most countries, including the USA and UK, stopped routine testing for swine flu and relied instead on verbal reporting.

We may never know whether the pharmaceutical companies deliberately over-egged the pudding, or how much their influence informed the WHO or Government decisions but the moral of this affair should be that we all emerge not with a dose of flu, or a shot of vaccine, but with a dose of healthy scepticism whenever there is a health scare with big money at stake. The House of Commons Health Committee report 'The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry' Fourth Report of Session 2004–05 makes sobering reading. In its summary it states

The interests of pharmaceutical companies and those of the public, patients and the NHS often overlap but they are not identical. For the industry, medical need must be combined with the likelihood of a reasonable return on investment. An effective regulatory regime to ensure that the industry works in the public interest is essential. Unfortunately, the present regulatory system is failing to provide this.

PCC complaint update

nospam@example.com (Keir Watson) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:35:38 +0000

Following my complaint to the Press Complaints Commision about the dubious vaccination 'articles' in the Guardian recently (see my post 09-01-10), I have received the reply I feared:

Dear Mr Watson

Thank you for your email
The Press Complaints Commission does not deal with complaints about advertisements published in newspapers or magazines. These are covered by the British Code of Advertising Practice, which is overseen by the Advertising Standards Authority at Mid City Place, 71 High Holborn, London, WC1V 6QT. I am forwarding your letter to the Authority which may be able to help you.
Further information about the PCC can be found on our website www.pcc.org.uk .
Yours sincerely

Simon Yip

I wait, without baited breath, for the Advertising Standards Authority to give their reply.

Why it's not placebo - Treating a baby's eczema

nospam@example.com (Afifah Hamilton) — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 17:35:54 +0000

We herbalists often come in for attack by people that have not seen our work first hand. The accusations is that our medicines offer no more than a 'placebo' effect. By this they mean that our medicines only work because the patient believes in them, and that they would receive the same benefit even if the medicine contained only sugar water! A similar accusation is that any apparent benefit is due to the time and sympathy we give during the consultation, not to the herbs employed.

The case below is an excellent example of the weakness of the placebo accusation, and shows that it cannot be the explanation.

A mother contacted me as her five month old baby had recently developed eczema out of the blue. He is soley on breast milk and has just started teething. His mother eats well and neither parent is atopic (prone to eczema, hayfever or asthma). Furthermore, the baby had not been vaccinated (which can cause/coincide with the advent of eczema).

I gave her three pots of cream (Chickweed, Comfrey and Chamomile), and asked her to try each one, because I have found from experience that some eczema cases respond better to one or other of these creams: Chickweed is cooling and softening, Comfrey has skin mending properties and Chamomile is distinctly anti-inflammatory.

The mum reported back today, after a week long trial of the creams. Neither the Comfrey nor the Chamomile made any difference, but the Chickweed resolved the eczema. The inflammation, redness, itchyness, change in skin quality and the dryness have now gone and the baby is back to his happy self. She now has a bigger pot to be used when needed.

So what does this case tell us about the placebo accusation? Firstly, I did not spend more than ten minutes on the case, so it wasn't the 'consultation' effect. Secondly, I had not influenced the mother towards one cream over the other, she saw with her own eyes which one worked. Finally, and most importantly, the patient was a baby, who could not be affected by any of the placebo mechanisms, could he?

The fact is: herbal medicine works in many, many cases. I'm sure I have far more success than any local GP with the kinds of cases I treat. My patients know it. In the meantime I hope I've given you a bit of mental resiliance next time you hear a 'rationalist' dismiss herbal medicine as mere placebo.

Guardian & NHS collaborate on MMR Propoganda

nospam@example.com (Keir Watson) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 22:44:31 +0000

I followed a link from Google News titled A doctor's view: 'The MMR vaccine was a godsend'.

I was initially annoyed at the usual lack of insight displayed in this set of myopic pro-vaccination articles, but became alarmed when I realised that it was in fact a strange Guardian / NHS 'advertorial' feature.

Although the articles are written in standard Guardian style journalism, and dressed up to look like news articles, I can't decide if this is inept NHS advertisement or more sinister calculated pro-vaccine propoganda. Either way I decided it warranted further action....

I have made a formal complaint to the ASA because as an advert it uses misinformation and emotion to pursude parents on a topic that should be based on honest information. And I also made a formal complaint to the Press Complaints Commission because as a piece of journalism it is misleading, inaccurate & distorts the issues, and failure to distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture & fact.

By the way, I am not anti-vaccination, or a vaccine-denier, but rather a vaccine sceptic.

Anyway, here are some of the main points I made in my complaint to the PCC:

The Guardian/NHS collaboration feature is a strange hybrid of 'advert' and journalistic 'news'.

The indication that it is in any way an advert is only shown in very small print, which is easily missed and does not make clear which part is an advert and which journalistic comment. As the articles appear under google's news search they are given an air of journalistic independence. Which are they? Advertising or Jouranalism? or a bit of both?

The feature consists of five pages including an article from a doctor and one from a parent (both are Guardian Journalists). Unlike most Guardian articles there is no comment section for public debate, instead at the bottom of these articles is a link to the NHS site. Furthermore, there are no commercial adverts on these pages, instead all the adverts are for the NHS.

Many people reading these pages will assume they are legitimate, independent journalistic articles. Especially as they have guardian.co.uk at the top of the text area, and the NHS adverts where normal adverts would appear.

In the section Your Free Guide to Childhood Immunisation, the Guardian fails to give any reference to adverse effects, side effects or other risks associated with the vaccination. This is unacceptable as these medical procedures have some risk and it is the duty of those promoting them to display these.

Throughout the articles the terms 'immunised' and 'vaccinated' are conflated as if they are interchangeable. They are not. Vaccination is the medical procedure. Immunisation is desired effect. It is widely understood that vaccination does not always 'take' so may not lead to full or even partial immunity, so it is incorrect to imply that vaccination guarantees immunity. This important fact is not reflected in these articles. Throughout the articles it is implied that full vaccination confers immunity to the disease. However, vaccines often fall out of use, e.g. the WHO no longer recommends the BCG and it has been dropped from the UK vaccination schedule, because it does not immunise individuals or the community effectively, despite previous claims that it did.

In the Key Facts section the statistic is given: "In 1987, the year before the MMR vaccine was introduced, 86,000 children caught measles and 16 died in the UK."

By not giving any of the linked statistics (e.g. the number of measles cases in the years following the introduction of MMR) an impression will be created in many peoples mind that the MMR reduced the nunber of cases to zero! I suggest this is the deliberate intention of the article.

A further point of deception is the implication that we did not have any protection before the MMR, however children received the single measles vaccine prior to 1987, which makes the quoted statistic close to meaningless. As these facts are well known to anyone who studies vaccination it would appear that the journalists involved in these articles have conspired with the NHS to mislead.

Another of the feature articles titled MMR A Mother's Storyby Jo Payton uses 'personal views' as a vehicle for conveying an unbalanced, one sided, emotive and non-scientific position that reinforces the misinformation in the more 'factual' sections. It appears to be written purely to support NHS propoganda rather than as a proper piece of journalistic enquiry as it contains no analysis or balancing views.

An examlpe of the failure of this piece to distinguish clearly between comment, conjecture and fact is the statement that "People don't think it's a serious disease, but there were two babies in hospital with measles at the same time as my son, and they suffered brain damage." This is uncorroborated fear mongering, and mearly anecdotal. For example, how different would the impression be if it turned out that these two babies had been previously vaccinated yet had sill contracted measles? With no proper information we are left to the crude emotional implications.

Jo quotes the same misleading statistic as given in the five key facts section, saying: "The most compelling statistic, as far as I was concerned, was that in the year before MMR was introduced, 86,000 UK children caught measles and 16 died." - again no thought or analysis is given.

As an interjection here to illustrate the point, below is a graph showing the deaths due to measles in the UK over the last 100 years or so:

it is quite clear that the main reductions in measles deaths happened well before the introduction of the measles vaccine. Any claim for the vaccine's effect is dwarfed by the declines before mass vaccination. Many commentators attribute these declines to improvements in hygine or the spread of naturally aquired immunity in the population. So how much benefit can really be attributed to the vaccine programme?

Continuing with my complaint to the Press Complaints Commission...
It is well documented that false positive reporting of a disease occurs when vaccine coverage is low, and false negative reporting when vaccine coverage is high - hence the statistics supporting the efficacy of vaccines tend to create a 'self-fulfilling prophesy' (I can supply widely available data to support this if you wish, much of it published in the news media in the past).

Good journalism should reflect these weaknesses in the data, to protect all of us from unnecessary medical intervention, and to ensure the 'salesmen' (NHS/drugs companies) supply good sound information.

The section titled A doctor's view: 'The MMR vaccine was a godsend' by Dr Tom Smith is really no less emotional or uncrittical, but appears to rely on the White Coat Effect - "afterall he should know, he is a doctor", but the fact that his article fits so well into the promotional structure of the feature as a whole demonstrates he is not being impartial.

His use of terms like 'debunked' and 'no credible scientific evidence' are non-scientific and overstate the case. As all scientific research and hypothesis are contingent (scientifically we can never say anything for certain).

Dr Smith's article seeks to create the view that the science of vaccination is settled, and anyone who thinks differently is part of an 'antivaccination' lobby. This is prejudiced, and attempts to stifle legitimate public and scientific debate.

In the House of Commons Health Committee report 2005 'The Influence of the Pharmaceutical Industry', there is criticism of the way that Pharmaceutical Industry publishes promotional (advertising) material designed to look like peer reviewed articles. This Guardian / NHS advertorial feature is similarly designed to appear as something it is not - as a set of independent journalistic articles.

Another misleading statement Dr Smith makes is: "As it is so infectious, your child will most likely catch measles if he or she is not immunised."

This is not a balanced or credible statement. Over the last 20 years Approx 5% of the child population has gone unvaccinated, but it is clear that nowhere near all of these have gone on to get measles.

The quote that the vaccine has been "Thoroughly tested" for safety is dubious. To my knowledge the research is mostly carried out by the vaccine manufacturers, who have a vested interest. The Health Committee report (mentioned above) cast serious doubt on the relationship between the NHS and the Pharmacetical industry. In the report's summary the committe states "An effective regulatory regime to ensure that the industry works in the public interest is essential. Unfortunately, the present regulatory regime is failing to provide this." The Guardian appears to be distorting the issue by supporting uncritically the NHS/pharmaceutical interest. They do not appear to be supporting the public interest identified by the select committee.

It is a pity that whilst attempting to correct the damage done by Dr Wakefield's dubious scientific studies Dr Smith falls into the very trap that Dr Wakefield did - excessive promotion of a conclusion that goes beyond the scientifically established facts.

Finally, I am concerned that the hybrid advertisement/newspaper article is an attempt to fall outside the jurisdiction of both the ASA and the PCC. Please take this into account in considering this complaint.

Happy Christmas

nospam@example.com (Afifah Hamilton) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 18:10:43 +0000

My site manager, Keir, has spent the days running up to Christmas setting up this blog on the Clinic website, which just gives me time to wish all of my patients and site visitors a

VERY HAPPY CHRISTMAS AND A MERRY NEW YEAR

The clinic is now closed. We re-open on January 4th. In the meantime I will try to answer any urgent medical calls promptly.

Best wishes for 2010, Afifah