Shal­iza Has­sanali

The le­gal de­part­ment at the Min­istry of Health has writ­ten the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard to take ac­tion against herbal prac­ti­tion­ers who pub­licly ad­ver­tise cur­ing body ill­ness­es.

On Thurs­day, Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan con­firmed the move by his le­gal team, stat­ing that "by now the DPP should have charged some­body...but we are hop­ing he gets around to it soon. The DPP will go af­ter those mak­ing false claims, but we now have to take ac­tion on the Food and Drug Di­vi­sion to reg­is­ter the drugs be­fore they can be sold."Asked if the min­istry will soon crack down on un­reg­u­lat­ed herbal prac­ti­tion­ers, Khan said, "I know you want me to say yes, we are try­ing to."

The let­ter was sent to Gas­pard, Khan said, "a while aback."So far, Khan has re­ceived no feed­back from the DPP, but promised that an­oth­er let­ter will be dis­patched to find out the cause of de­lay."It's tak­ing too long for ac­tion. Herbal prac­ti­tion­ers are like drug deal­ers. You take one out and ten will take their place."

Some ad­ver­tise­ments claim to cure asth­ma, tu­ber­cu­lo­sis, can­cer, di­a­betes, high cho­les­terol, high blood pres­sure and pro­mote weight loss. Khan said the ad­ver­tise­ments con­tra­vene the Con­sumer Pro­tec­tion and Safe­ty Act, which pro­vides the leg­isla­tive ba­sis for over­all con­sumer pro­tec­tion.

Herbal drugs not reg­u­lat­ed

Herbal drugs, Khan said, are not reg­u­lat­ed un­der the law."What we are try­ing to do is bring them (herbal­ists) un­der that...the law."Last May, In­de­pen­dent Sen­a­tor Sub­has Ramkhelawan said the min­istry need­ed to crack down on the un­reg­u­lat­ed herbal med­i­cine in­dus­try.Ramkhelawan said con­sumers were be­ing scammed by promis­es for cures of ma­jor dis­eases.

Un­able to say how many herbal shops are in ex­is­tence, Khan said there is a lot, with every "Tom, Dick and Har­ry sell­ing the prod­ucts which is now a thriv­ing in­dus­try."Khan said be­cause the Food and Drugs Act needs to be re­vised herbal­ists do what they please.He said la­belling re­quire­ments for items un­der the act do not ad­e­quate­ly pro­tect con­sumers.

Khan de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as "se­ri­ous and hor­ren­dous" since herbal prac­ti­tion­ers have been "mak­ing false and spu­ri­ous claims of cur­ing all sorts of ma­jor ill­ness­es."

The ads

An ad­ver­tise­ment by Trevor Say­ers of Nat­u­ral­ized Herbs placed in the T&T Busi­ness Di­rec­to­ry of 2013 states "Help cure all body ill­ness­es."While an April 4 clas­si­fied ad in one dai­ly news­pa­per by Moth­er Na­ture man­aged by Michael John wrote "All dis­eases can be healed."Moth­er Na­ture's Web site showed that herbal tablets are de­signed to re­move all dis­eases.Khan said if peo­ple are in­clined to be­lieve in the tablets, which have no sci­en­tif­ic proof, it tells we are high­ly gullible.

"Peo­ple have to un­der­stand that is rub­bish they are buy­ing and what they are do­ing is sub­ject­ing their body's or­gans to all sorts of tox­ic re­ac­tions."Khan said many of the herbal­ists are clue­less of the tablets' com­po­si­tion.He said the Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion had not ap­proved these herbal med­ica­tions and peo­ple would have to face their con­se­quences.The min­is­ter said peo­ple have to take re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for their health.

Trinidade: Con­trol need­ed

Dr Austin Trinidade, pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cers of the T&T Med­ical As­so­ci­a­tion, al­so in­tends to write the DPP by month's end, since they have been re­ceiv­ing com­plaints from med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers about the ef­fects herbal treat­ments were hav­ing on pa­tients.On May 1, the as­so­ci­a­tion is­sued an ad­ver­tise­ment ad­vis­ing the pub­lic that the ti­tle "doc­tor" be­fore a per­son's name does not mean the in­di­vid­ual is a med­ical prac­ti­tion­er.

They al­so re­mind­ed cit­i­zens that on­ly med­ical prac­ti­tion­ers reg­is­tered with the Med­ical Board of T&T (MBTT) are li­cenced to di­ag­nose and treat pa­tients, since a num­ber of peo­ple were of­fer­ing spu­ri­ous med­ical ad­vice and dis­pend­ing ther­a­pies of ques­tion­able val­ue to the pub­lic.Trinidade said his let­ter would be the sec­ond in three years, since the MBTT had writ­ten Gas­pard's pre­de­ces­sor.Though noth­ing was done, Trinidade said he felt com­pelled to ask the DPP to in­ter­vene.

Speak­ing at his San Fer­nan­do of­fice on Wednes­day, Trinidade said they had noth­ing against herbal med­i­cine."In fact, a lot of our present med­ica­tion has come from herbs. What we are against is their cure claims."Trinidade said the herbal shop op­er­a­tors have been hood­wink­ing pa­tients in­to buy­ing ex­pen­sive ther­a­pies to cure a num­ber of ail­ments. "They are prey­ing on peo­ple's ill­ness­es."

Trinidade agreed that the au­thor­i­ties have tak­en too long to act."We are not go­ing to let it rest. There needs to be con­trol. We don't want to put any­one out of busi­ness."Asked if the DPP fails to act what then, Trinidade replied, "What can I do? We can al­so write the Min­is­ter of Health."Trinidade said the MBTT has lit­tle pow­er to pros­e­cute herbal­ists who are not un­der its ju­ris­dic­tion.He said he knows of one herbal­ist who us­es the "doc­tor" ti­tle.

Even with mod­ern ther­a­pies, Trinidade said doc­tors do not promise cures."We sta­bilise the pa­tient's con­di­tion and treat them."Trinidade said doc­tors have no­ticed a trend in which pa­tients would switch from pre­scribed med­ica­tion to herbs."We feel what the herbs do is mask their re­sults. So if you test your urine and blood it would not give the prop­er read­ing. Peo­ple may feel good for a lit­tle while. It gives you this false sense of se­cu­ri­ty that you have cured your dis­ease. Most of these things have no ther­a­peu­tic ef­fect."

Af­ter time, Trinidade said, the pa­tient's health starts to de­te­ri­o­rate and they re­turn to their med­ical prac­ti­tion­er for help."That is what have been wor­ry­ing us."

Health care sys­tem in a mess

As a watch­dog for the pub­lic, Trinidade said peo­ple are turn­ing to ther­a­pies be­cause they are not get­ting full sat­is­fac­tion from the health care sys­tem, which is in a mess.Trinidade said the op­er­a­tions of these busi­ness­es send a sub­lim­i­nal mes­sage that it was okay to seek med­ical help from herbal shops and gave room for oth­ers to come on board.Some of the nat­ur­al herbs they of­fer, Trinidade said, are lax­a­tives.

By law, Trinidade said, all drugs must be ap­proved by the Food and Drug Ad­min­is­tra­tion and their side ef­fects known.He said herbal med­i­cine has re­mained un­touched be­cause peo­ple see it as a food sup­ple­ment and not a drug.At a meet­ing last week the is­sue was dis­cussed by the as­so­ci­a­tion's 500 mem­bers, Trinidade said.

Say­ers: They too farse...they can't stop herbal treat­ment

Trevor Say­ers who opened 13 out­lets of Nat­u­ral­ized Herbs de­fend­ed his busi­ness on Thurs­day, stat­ing that herbal reme­dies have been around longer than doc­tors.Say­ers ques­tioned if the au­thor­i­ties would go all out to stop pas­tors from heal­ing peo­ple as well."Tell them I say how they too farse. And they can't do noth­ing...they can't stop herbal treat­ment. They have to go in the mar­ket and stop all the chive and cel­ery."

Say­ers de­scribed the med­ical pro­fes­sion as "phoney.""If you don't use herbs, you dead."Say­ers in a Trinidad Guardian ar­ti­cle writ­ten by Zahra Gor­don last May, re­fused to show any­one his de­gree in nat­ur­al med­i­cine, telling them where he stud­ied or with whom."If you un­der­stand what is the mean­ing of a doc­tor, it's some­one who takes care of the sick. I al­so stud­ied nat­ur­al med­i­cine all over the world," said Say­ers.

When asked to spec­i­fy lo­ca­tions, he sim­ply re­peat­ed "all over the world."

John: Doc­tors threat­ened

Michael John who man­ages Moth­er Na­ture feels doc­tors are threat­ened by herbal treat­ments."They feel you threat­en­ing them. When some­body say they get­ting well, you think I does pay peo­ple to say those things. You think I could pay In­di­an peo­ple to lie for me and fool they own peo­ple."He said hun­dreds of peo­ple had sought treat­ment from him.

John said his tablets from Chi­na had no side ef­fects and were cheap­er than pre­scribed drugs.If a pa­tient is tar­get­ing can­cer, John said his/her week's sup­ply of tablets would cost $295.He said a pa­tient has to take six weeks of treat­ment "to get rid of can­cer."If this was the di­rec­tion the min­istry in­tend­ed to take, John said they al­so need­ed to crack down on drug­stores as well.

John ad­mit­ted that "plen­ty peo­ple" were sell­ing herbs and oth­er busi­ness­es were mush­room­ing."Look at how we are dy­ing be­cause of our di­et and lifestyle?...look at the lawyers, doc­tors and politi­cians...look at their bel­lies, touch­ing their throats?"The herbal­ist said he does not de­ter any­one from tak­ing their pre­scribed med­ica­tion.