Published by Heidi Stevenson on Oct 12, 2010
Category: Civil Rights
Region: Europe
Target: European Union Committee on Petitions
Background (Preamble):
The Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) is presented as a service to European citizens and as simple to apply. However, close examination of its methods in practice demonstrates that the reality will be an egregious abridgement of the rights of individuals to obtain and use the health treatments they choose.
While it benefits citizens for governmental agencies to advise on efficacy and safety of products that have been commonly and freely used by utilising a particular method of inquiry, that information may not address the needs of individuals and presumes that there is only one system for obtaining accurate and beneficial information. That is equivalent to allowing only one religion as the accepted source of truth.
The costs and systems required by THMPD are generally not manageable by small manufacturers, which are the predominant suppliers of herbal products. This results in an unfair competitive advantage to multinational corporations, which ultimately limits the individual's access to quality and selection in herbal medicinal products.
With THMPD, the European Union has overstepped and is severely restricting the unwritten rights of each human being to choose and access methods of managing health. It is a dangerous usurpation of civil rights that assumes the individual does not have the ability to make proper health decisions. Self-determination in matters of health must be treated as an inherent civil right, and THMPD is an abrogation of it.
Read this to see the sort of madness that the EU Commission is already enacting--and that you may help stop by signing this petition.