Government defends right to homeopathy on the NHS
26 July 2010
By Ian Quinn (Pulse Today)
The Government has strongly rejected demands by MPs for the funding of homeopathy on the NHS to be withdrawn, claiming it would fly in the face of patient choice and local decision-making.
In its response to a report from the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee, which issued a damning verdict on the practice and called for GPs to be barred from referring patients under the NHS, the Department of Heath said it would not be stepping in - despite MPs' concerns over the lack of evidence and regulation of homeopathic treatments.
MPs had called not only for doctors to be barred from referring patients to homeopathic hospitals or homeopaths, but for the MHRA to intervene and to apply the same standards of regulation as for medicines, which they said would remove any medical claim supporters of homeopathy had.
But in its response today the DH said: ‘It is not appropriate for the Department of Health to remove the right of PCTs to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis.'
‘Capital investment decisions in the NHS are planned and decided at local level. The commissioning plans of local PCTs set out the type of services that need to be provided and therefore drive decisions about the nature of new facilities needed, or the need to maintain, update or replace existing facilities.’
The committee had also called for an investigation into the cost of homeopathy to the NHS and for new research into the evidence-base for homeopathy, but this too was rejected.
MPs had wanted regulators to ‘remove any medical claim and any implied endorsement of efficacy by the MHRA’ by ensuring the same evidence of efficacy used to assess conventional medicines was used, but the Government said this would potentially deal a fatal blow to the homeopathy market and limit consumer choice.
‘Homeopathy has a long tradition in Europe and is a recognised and widely used system of medicine across the EU,’ it said.
‘The Government takes the view that consumers who choose to use homeopathic medicines should be fully informed about their purpose and assured that standards of quality and safety are maintained. If homeopathic medicines were not subject to any kind of regulatory control consumers would not have access to such information or assurances.'
'Conversely, if regulation was applied to homeopathic medicines as understood in the context of conventional pharmaceutical medicines, these products would have to be withdrawn from the market as medicines. This would constrain consumer choice and, more importantly, risk the introduction of unregulated, poor quality and potentially unsafe products on the market to satisfy consumer demand.’
However the campaign group Sense About Science hit out at the Department of Health's ruling.
'The Government has ignored the Committee’s detailed consideration of the licensing of homeopathic products as medicines,' it said in a statement.
'It has acknowledged that “there will be an assumption that if the NHS is offering homeopathic treatments then they will be efficacious” and that homeopathic products can be licensed with no requirement for evidence that they treat any condition at all. However, the Government has put forward a weak point about ‘patient choice’ instead of considering what to do about these problems. At a time when PCTs are reviewing expenditure on ineffective treatments, this is perverse.'
'We urge them to go back and give proper consideration to this part of the Committee’s report. In the meantime, we recommend a warning on the label of homeopathic products telling people that the product is licensed without any evidence that it works.'
Edzard Ernst | 26 Jul 10
So much for evidence-based government and healthcare decisions!
Brian Kaplan - London | 26 Jul 10
This is truly marvellous news - simply the most heartening thing I've read in PULSE for years.
The government's decision is a victory for liberty and democracy in this country and a slap in the face for those who would seek to thwart the rights of GPs to send patients to fully qualified doctors on the NHS who use homeopathic medicine.
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=4126664&c=2
Monday, July 26, 2010
Friday, July 16, 2010
Larry Paikin interview regarding the G20 in Toronto
Mr. Paikin is a very respected journalist and the anchor of a nightly program on TV Ontario. He is measured and balanced and not one to overstate a case. Watch this and see how concerned he is about Democracy in Ontario and in Canada.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCWNqMV4Bgs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DCWNqMV4Bgs
Monday, July 12, 2010
Seems our personal freedoms are being usurped.
The Bitch is Back: Bill C-6 reincarnates as C-36
Dee Nicholson | July 11, 2010 at 11:24 am | Tags: Activism, Bill C-36, Canada, Canadians, choices, constitution, due process, education, freedom, health care, Health Freedom, justice, natural health, propaganda, Urgent Action, W.H.O. | Categories: Activism, Big Pharma, Bill C-36, Bill C-6, Codex Alimentarius, Corruption, Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pFEkY-f7
By Dee Nicholson
Battle-worn health freedom activists waited six months for the shoe to drop, knowing full well that at any moment, their latest nemesis, the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act called C-6, might reappear.
Last month, their impatience was rewarded, as Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq rose to introduce Bill C-36, complete with the same troublesome, rights-stomping provisions as in its momma. And of course, the same really, really nasty language making Canadians “subject to the dictates of foreign authorities”, the words that allow foreign committees (like trade groups) decide how we’re going to run things.
It’ll be their way, or the highway.
Witness the fact that the 106th US Congress voted to change American corporate tax law, not because it wanted to, but because it was ordered to – by the World Trade Organization. Now, if the WTO can yank the chains of the Yankees that easily, do we really think domestic Canadian laws are any less vulnerable?
There have been ten major trade agreements signed by Canada over the past sixteen years, and there are twelve more pending, including the “Free Trade Area of the Americas”. These trade obligations, signed eagerly by our successive governments, have Canada in shackles, and somehow, hardly anybody’s noticing.
Recently, master filmmaker Kevin P. Miller released a documentary showing Canadians how this has happened, in a dynamic retrospective leading to a dubious future: “A Question of Sovereignty” is now online for viewing at http://vimeo.com/13024940, and every red-blooded Canadian needs to see it, and now. It’s 23 minutes of jaw-dropping wakeup call.
Miller describes the film as “patriotic and sentimental” and I have to admit that it brings an uncomfortable lump to the throat as you watch our sovereignty being hijacked. But it also sets your couch on fire.
Miller’s take: “Quietly, over a period of many years, unconstitutional legislation encompassed in Bills C-51, C-6, and the current Bill C-36 have placed not only basic civil liberties and freedoms at risk, but Canada's national sovereignty as well. The film shares how entangling alliances with groups like the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, Codex Alimentarius, the United States and even multinational corporate interests have become so powerful that they literally threaten to make elected officials in Parliament irrelevant.”
I have to thank Kevin for saving me a whole lot of time explaining what’s going on, and let the film speak for itself, because it does. And it’s going to play an important role in how Canadian health freedom fighters will be approaching the nascent battle against Bill C-36, while proving especially valuable in rousing more Canadians from their sleepwalking state.
Take a moment to absorb the very real danger of Canada’s virtual absorption into a global trade network that hovers over this nation right now. Piece by piece, department by department, our self-rule is being eroded by obligations to committees where our vote doesn't matter. For example, at the World Trade Organization, Canada is one out of nearly 200 nations. One. None of the other members really give a rat’s behind what we want. Worse yet, if we insist on doing our own thing, we face sanctions, in some cases cross-industry trade sanctions of millions per day, or quitting and being viewed as anathema by all the other suckers in the group.
So, no sovereignty, no health freedom. No freedom guaranteed at all. That candle is going out, bit by bit, as the trade groups meet and decide what the whole group will do, and if our laws conflict, too bad, so sad for our laws. And our self-rule.
Meanwhile, there are massive collisions set to happen. All these contracts with all sorts of terms, and what happens when they start to need enforcing? Gridlock. And what do you need when you have gridlock? A traffic cop. Do you see the platform for global government being "necessitated into existence" by the ongoing commitments of our governments, no matter which party was in power? Commitments to trading. To profit. Not to people. To share wealth, meaning spread what we have across the whole slice of bread while they retain the loaf. This is what Harper meant at the G8 when he spoke of "shared prosperity".
And those were the exact words used by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at the UN this past week.
Bill C-36 swings the doors to Canada wide open to outside domination by foreign authorities that we will never vote for and who could not care less what we want. These are the same foreign authorities waiting, butter knife in hand, to spread the wealth, which really means to bring the world equal-opportunity poverty.
Without sovereignty, we have nothing, and Bill C-36 takes away a sizeable chunk of it with Codex looming, as well as a big pact with the EU, where the food regulations are just as bad as Codex already. You need to understand the depth and breadth of what Codex will do, and how our government is absolutely committed to going there. (See www.thenhf.com for full details on Codex, and read constitutional lawyer and health freedom advocate Shawn Buckley's analysis of Bill C-36 at www.nhppa.org)|
Bear in mind that Health Canada, with C-36, is asking to be granted police and judicial powers, the right to be judge, jury and executioner at will, to impose fines and imprisonment, without recourse to courts or recompense. But we're supposed to be satisfied by the fact that they promise to call a judge for a warrant? These are the powers that Leona Aglukkaq says are necessary for her agency to "protect Canadians against hazardous consumer products".
The posts at www.canadiansforhealthfreedom.org show what sort of “protection” Canadians got from their government when Health Canada foisted that particular hazardous product on the population. Bear in mind, they did so at the advice of whom? The same WHO that's been exposed as being in a huge conflict of interest beneficial to Big Pharma for its re-jigging of the very definition of a pandemic in order to declare one, on the advice of people connected to Big Pharma, which made a gazillion dollars feeding the toxic stuff to people around the world, from which many people suffered severe health problems. People like the ones on that page.
This is the same Health Canada that is asking for quasi-judicial powers, to "protect Canadians from hazardous products".
Remember Leona Aglukkaq, cajoling the Senate with portents of babies dying from faulty crib and playpen designs, if Bill C-6 didn't pass? She's trotted that one out already again for its doppelganger, C-36.
Now, unfortunately for Aglukkaq, there are actual dead babies which would today in all likelihood be alive, were it not for Health Canada's following of foreign "suggestions" in the promotion of the largely-untested H1N1 vaccine to Canadians, with the full expectation of “collateral damage”. And this Minister wants us to believe that this agency could be trusted with police and judicial powers? This Minister wants us to believe that the agency honors the rights of Canadians, after the shameful raid against Dr. Eldon Dahl last year, holding his family at gunpoint for 11 hours because he sold some vitamins in a sting operation by the health police? Dahl had what looked to him like the G20 security force bash in his front door. This protects Canadians, how? In my humble opinion, it doesn’t.
Instead, it endangers the very fabric of our nation.
Thankfully, there is a new army being assembled against Health Canada’s assault on our sovereign right to health freedom, with the establishment of The National Health Federation (Canada). Its parent organization, the NHF (www.thenhf.com), is the world’s largest and oldest health freedom organization, with branches in nine nations and membership in thirty countries, and is a recognized International Non-Governmental Organization.
The move gives Canada, for the first time, standing as delegates to Codex Alimentarius with the right to speak to the committee, and to Canadians, the ability to speak truth to power. In addition, the organization’s international scope means that we speak with the voices of twenty-nine other nations behind us, sharing the same concerns. That’s more votes than Canada has at the WTO.
I am honored to be one of three Co-Executive Directors of the new NHF Canada, and am gleefully sharpening my teeth. My partners in crime are both heroines in health freedom: Marilyn Nelson, founder of Freedom of Choice in Health Care and veteran of decades of skirmishes with ministers of health; and Candace Hill, nutritionist, passionate educator, and master instigator of stuff happening. With us will be many of the health warriors from Canadians for Health Freedom who barraged the Senate last year with a demand they couldn’t refuse.
Bill C-36, the bitch, is back. We think that calls for neutering.
Dee Nicholson | July 11, 2010 at 11:24 am | Tags: Activism, Bill C-36, Canada, Canadians, choices, constitution, due process, education, freedom, health care, Health Freedom, justice, natural health, propaganda, Urgent Action, W.H.O. | Categories: Activism, Big Pharma, Bill C-36, Bill C-6, Codex Alimentarius, Corruption, Uncategorized | URL: http://wp.me/pFEkY-f7
By Dee Nicholson
Battle-worn health freedom activists waited six months for the shoe to drop, knowing full well that at any moment, their latest nemesis, the Canada Consumer Product Safety Act called C-6, might reappear.
Last month, their impatience was rewarded, as Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq rose to introduce Bill C-36, complete with the same troublesome, rights-stomping provisions as in its momma. And of course, the same really, really nasty language making Canadians “subject to the dictates of foreign authorities”, the words that allow foreign committees (like trade groups) decide how we’re going to run things.
It’ll be their way, or the highway.
Witness the fact that the 106th US Congress voted to change American corporate tax law, not because it wanted to, but because it was ordered to – by the World Trade Organization. Now, if the WTO can yank the chains of the Yankees that easily, do we really think domestic Canadian laws are any less vulnerable?
There have been ten major trade agreements signed by Canada over the past sixteen years, and there are twelve more pending, including the “Free Trade Area of the Americas”. These trade obligations, signed eagerly by our successive governments, have Canada in shackles, and somehow, hardly anybody’s noticing.
Recently, master filmmaker Kevin P. Miller released a documentary showing Canadians how this has happened, in a dynamic retrospective leading to a dubious future: “A Question of Sovereignty” is now online for viewing at http://vimeo.com/13024940, and every red-blooded Canadian needs to see it, and now. It’s 23 minutes of jaw-dropping wakeup call.
Miller describes the film as “patriotic and sentimental” and I have to admit that it brings an uncomfortable lump to the throat as you watch our sovereignty being hijacked. But it also sets your couch on fire.
Miller’s take: “Quietly, over a period of many years, unconstitutional legislation encompassed in Bills C-51, C-6, and the current Bill C-36 have placed not only basic civil liberties and freedoms at risk, but Canada's national sovereignty as well. The film shares how entangling alliances with groups like the World Trade Organization, the World Health Organization, Codex Alimentarius, the United States and even multinational corporate interests have become so powerful that they literally threaten to make elected officials in Parliament irrelevant.”
I have to thank Kevin for saving me a whole lot of time explaining what’s going on, and let the film speak for itself, because it does. And it’s going to play an important role in how Canadian health freedom fighters will be approaching the nascent battle against Bill C-36, while proving especially valuable in rousing more Canadians from their sleepwalking state.
Take a moment to absorb the very real danger of Canada’s virtual absorption into a global trade network that hovers over this nation right now. Piece by piece, department by department, our self-rule is being eroded by obligations to committees where our vote doesn't matter. For example, at the World Trade Organization, Canada is one out of nearly 200 nations. One. None of the other members really give a rat’s behind what we want. Worse yet, if we insist on doing our own thing, we face sanctions, in some cases cross-industry trade sanctions of millions per day, or quitting and being viewed as anathema by all the other suckers in the group.
So, no sovereignty, no health freedom. No freedom guaranteed at all. That candle is going out, bit by bit, as the trade groups meet and decide what the whole group will do, and if our laws conflict, too bad, so sad for our laws. And our self-rule.
Meanwhile, there are massive collisions set to happen. All these contracts with all sorts of terms, and what happens when they start to need enforcing? Gridlock. And what do you need when you have gridlock? A traffic cop. Do you see the platform for global government being "necessitated into existence" by the ongoing commitments of our governments, no matter which party was in power? Commitments to trading. To profit. Not to people. To share wealth, meaning spread what we have across the whole slice of bread while they retain the loaf. This is what Harper meant at the G8 when he spoke of "shared prosperity".
And those were the exact words used by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth at the UN this past week.
Bill C-36 swings the doors to Canada wide open to outside domination by foreign authorities that we will never vote for and who could not care less what we want. These are the same foreign authorities waiting, butter knife in hand, to spread the wealth, which really means to bring the world equal-opportunity poverty.
Without sovereignty, we have nothing, and Bill C-36 takes away a sizeable chunk of it with Codex looming, as well as a big pact with the EU, where the food regulations are just as bad as Codex already. You need to understand the depth and breadth of what Codex will do, and how our government is absolutely committed to going there. (See www.thenhf.com for full details on Codex, and read constitutional lawyer and health freedom advocate Shawn Buckley's analysis of Bill C-36 at www.nhppa.org)|
Bear in mind that Health Canada, with C-36, is asking to be granted police and judicial powers, the right to be judge, jury and executioner at will, to impose fines and imprisonment, without recourse to courts or recompense. But we're supposed to be satisfied by the fact that they promise to call a judge for a warrant? These are the powers that Leona Aglukkaq says are necessary for her agency to "protect Canadians against hazardous consumer products".
The posts at www.canadiansforhealthfreedom.org show what sort of “protection” Canadians got from their government when Health Canada foisted that particular hazardous product on the population. Bear in mind, they did so at the advice of whom? The same WHO that's been exposed as being in a huge conflict of interest beneficial to Big Pharma for its re-jigging of the very definition of a pandemic in order to declare one, on the advice of people connected to Big Pharma, which made a gazillion dollars feeding the toxic stuff to people around the world, from which many people suffered severe health problems. People like the ones on that page.
This is the same Health Canada that is asking for quasi-judicial powers, to "protect Canadians from hazardous products".
Remember Leona Aglukkaq, cajoling the Senate with portents of babies dying from faulty crib and playpen designs, if Bill C-6 didn't pass? She's trotted that one out already again for its doppelganger, C-36.
Now, unfortunately for Aglukkaq, there are actual dead babies which would today in all likelihood be alive, were it not for Health Canada's following of foreign "suggestions" in the promotion of the largely-untested H1N1 vaccine to Canadians, with the full expectation of “collateral damage”. And this Minister wants us to believe that this agency could be trusted with police and judicial powers? This Minister wants us to believe that the agency honors the rights of Canadians, after the shameful raid against Dr. Eldon Dahl last year, holding his family at gunpoint for 11 hours because he sold some vitamins in a sting operation by the health police? Dahl had what looked to him like the G20 security force bash in his front door. This protects Canadians, how? In my humble opinion, it doesn’t.
Instead, it endangers the very fabric of our nation.
Thankfully, there is a new army being assembled against Health Canada’s assault on our sovereign right to health freedom, with the establishment of The National Health Federation (Canada). Its parent organization, the NHF (www.thenhf.com), is the world’s largest and oldest health freedom organization, with branches in nine nations and membership in thirty countries, and is a recognized International Non-Governmental Organization.
The move gives Canada, for the first time, standing as delegates to Codex Alimentarius with the right to speak to the committee, and to Canadians, the ability to speak truth to power. In addition, the organization’s international scope means that we speak with the voices of twenty-nine other nations behind us, sharing the same concerns. That’s more votes than Canada has at the WTO.
I am honored to be one of three Co-Executive Directors of the new NHF Canada, and am gleefully sharpening my teeth. My partners in crime are both heroines in health freedom: Marilyn Nelson, founder of Freedom of Choice in Health Care and veteran of decades of skirmishes with ministers of health; and Candace Hill, nutritionist, passionate educator, and master instigator of stuff happening. With us will be many of the health warriors from Canadians for Health Freedom who barraged the Senate last year with a demand they couldn’t refuse.
Bill C-36, the bitch, is back. We think that calls for neutering.
Tuesday, July 6, 2010
This fim was sent to me by Dee Nicholson press officer for "Canadians for Health Freedom" - http://canadiansforhealthfreedom.wordpress.com/
The film is entirely about how sovereignty is being removed in Canada, and how it is affecting our choices.
You can view it at:
http://vimeo.com/13024940
Enjoy!
Dee
After watching this and the powerful and thoughtful men who did their best to protect our sovereignty; I think it is time for a new political party.
"PEOPLES SOVEREIGN PARTY OF CANADA"
PSPC
Bring Canada Home
WHAT DO YOU THINK? PLEASE WRITE AND TELL ME.
The film is entirely about how sovereignty is being removed in Canada, and how it is affecting our choices.
You can view it at:
http://vimeo.com/13024940
Enjoy!
Dee
After watching this and the powerful and thoughtful men who did their best to protect our sovereignty; I think it is time for a new political party.
"PEOPLES SOVEREIGN PARTY OF CANADA"
PSPC
Bring Canada Home
WHAT DO YOU THINK? PLEASE WRITE AND TELL ME.
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