Would you like to see natural medicine practitioners working more closely with mainstream medical or other health practitioners ? I do hope to see a situation in the future , like currently in China , where every locality has a clinic where both natural and mainstream medical practitioners are working together in the interests of their local community .
What are your thoughts on the reputation and acceptance of natural medicine ? Sadly , I feel we still have a long way to go . When I embarked upon my career in natural medicine more than 40 years ago , the criticism that our treatments lacked scientific evidence was largely valid . This is not the case now , and yet our greater acceptance hasn ' t happened . I can only put this down to the operation of vested interests and a lack of awareness , but it is very disappointing to me .
Evidence-based medicine has its place . I mean one area where scientific investigation of natural remedies is proving to be very useful is the new and novel applications that are being discovered and backed up by clinical evidence . I feature such studies regularly on my Facebook page , and to me this is advancing the profession with new treatment options . But we need to understand that evidence-based medicine as it is currently practised , which is more a drug company driven agenda , can never offer us insight into the individual patient . So we can use our philosophy , training , experience and skills to identify the therapeutic targets , and then clinical evidence can tell us which arrows are sharp enough to fire at those targets . This is the whole basis of the Functional Herbal Therapy approach , which is the topic of my latest book .
In addition to your practice , you are well known for your prolific writing both in peer-reviewed and professional association journals and for your textbooks , including the very popular ‘ Principles and Practice of Phytotherapy ’. How did this interest in writing develop ?
I ' m an academic type who did extremely well in my studies , so it was natural for me to start researching about herbs and then putting that information together into textbooks . In terms of my role in writing research papers , I believe that this is an important element of how we can advance the profession both in terms of knowledge and status .
You have directed the research program at MediHerb for many years . What are your thoughts about research in natural medicine ( e . g ., the role of research , funding , research capacity among natural medicine practitioners )? As I said above , basically I believe it is absolutely vital that we continue to do research . Unfortunately , the bias in the system means that natural medicine studies are generally not well funded . So here companies should step in and do as much as they can and that has certainly been my driver in directing the research at MediHerb .
And you raise an interesting point that natural medicine practitioners are a hugely valuable research resource . Some of our recent research projects at MediHerb are reflecting this .
Further on this theme , during the Pan Pharmaceuticals fiasco I was interviewed by the ABC as part of their Background Briefing programme . They raised the topic , challenging me , of the evidence behind natural medicine . I responded that yes of course we are now growing our evidence base and have accumulated a large number of clinical studies . However , I added that the real evidence , the evidence that really mattered , was that being generated at the coalface by the thousands of natural therapists around this country helping people who could not be helped by conventional medicine . I also believe we need to be capturing this better .
What is your view of the current state of natural medicine in Australia today and where do you think natural medicine is heading ? I think we have some headwinds . I am not someone who usually subscribes to conspiracy theories , but I do believe there is now an active campaign happening at many levels in our community to discourage people from using natural medicines , seeking to damage the reputations of practitioners and the remedies that they use . To some extent I believe we have become victims of our own success . There is more awareness of what we have to offer , and we have the evidence now , so we are seen as a significant threat to the vested interests in mainstream medicine and big pharma .
In contrast , I think our profile among young people is less than it has been in the past . I hear , for example , that Bastyr University in the United States is struggling to reach enrolment targets .
I further think that the TGA is more bureaucratic now and does not look upon natural treatments as favourably as it has in the past . This is resulting in some recent examples of the profession not being regarded as being sufficiently important to stop the unnecessary loss of certain herbs , for example bearberry , Artemisia species , damiana , meadowsweet and so on . It was a big impost on the industry to prepare submissions to make these herbs available again . The reasons why these herbs became unavailable were not valid , but we did not have a strong enough voice apparently for the TGA to treat our profession respectfully .
On the other hand , biomedical science is validating out approach on a daily basis . Some of the advice from authoritative bodies , for say prevention of cancer or dementia , reads like it is straight out of a natural therapy textbook . This , together with new research on uses of herbs and supplements , will help make us even more clinically effective . In time , science will give us the new Ginkgo or the new curcumin , and I find this hugely exciting .
With the ability to better identify people at risk from the major diseases of ageing , people will more and more seek preventative treatments that are safe and
168 | vol30 | no3 | JATMS