Evidence Based Medicine is the current
mantra of pharmaceutical medicine but there are problems when all of the
evidence is created by industry. Natural medicines are held to the spotlight
because of lack of a scientific evidence base, but the safety issues are of
herbal medicines pale into insignificance compared with chemicals in drugs. By
design the drugs block or overwhelm our normal body chemistry. By definition,
there is no history of previous exposure to new drugs, and they are designed to
have a big impact because too small an impact will not be clinically
significant on a short trial typical for Randomised Controlled Clinical trials.
There are systematic problems with using
the results of drug company research as a sole basis for making decisions about
drugs as presented by Peter Doshi as he outline the Tamiflu story in this
video. The Cochrane Database is recognized for its rigour as an independent
assessments of evidence, but as you can see that is only an independent
assessment of ‘available’ evidence:
We have stockpiled billions of
Euros/Dollars on this product, how many Stroke Rehab facilities, or Community
nurses could have been funded by this tax payers contribution to drug company
profits.
There are clinical trials validating the
use of herbal remedies for influenza, particularly Elderberries.
‘Symptoms were relieved on average 4 days
earlier and use of rescue medication was significantly less in those receiving
elderberry extract compared with placebo. Elderberry extract seems to offer an
efficient, safe and cost-effective treatment for influenza. These findings need
to be confirmed in a larger study’[1].
‘In conclusion, elderberry juice (CJ+E) had
a favorable effect on the control of influenza virus infection, the fraction
containing high molecular weigh compounds seemed to play an important role in
the anti-influenza effect’.[2]
Now we know that elderberries have been
part of the human diet for thousands of years, that is no guarantee that rare
unpredictable allergic responses are not possible or that it is certain not to
affect modern drugs, but the chances of the first is rare and most interactions
are somewhat predictable on evaluation of the known constituents of
elderberries.
Herbs can only be recommended on the basis
of modern research. The budget for this research is minimal and the premise is
often one of exaggerated danger rather than open minded consolidation of
existing empirical or observed benefit (often over thousands of years).
