Letter to the editor

THE controversy over the new list of permi4ed indica*ons for complementary medicines (PD 09 Feb) is con*nuing, with the Friends of Science in Medicine’s Ken Harvey providing the following response to Carl Gibson, ceo of Complementary Medicines Australia.

In Pharmacy Daily (22/02/18) Carl Gibson (CEO) CMA said: ‘Friends of Science wants our industry dead, they don’t respect traditional evidence claims, they are culturally insensitive and now they want to restrict weight loss products as we face a public health crisis with obesity.

As an executive member of FSM, I dispute Carl’s assertion.

FSM acknowledges that Australia is a multicultural and pluralistic society and we support access to traditional and complementary medical products.

However, many civil society organisations including Choice, CHF, RACGP and FSM are concerned that the TGA’s final list of permitted indication contains 876 (86%) of 1019 indications / claims that can be supported by ‘traditional’ evidence.

This is likely to result in a flood of products for alternative medical traditions such as Traditional Chinese Medicine, Ayurveda, Western Herbalism and Homeopathy.

This also allows manufacturers to evade the need to have scientific evidence to support any claims made, endorses pseudoscience and will confuse and mislead consumers with products that claim to ‘soften hardness’, ‘tonify kidney essence’ and ‘open body orifices’.

Finally, FSM would be grateful if Mr Gibson could provide the evidence that complementary medicines promoted for weight loss, such as ‘Fatblaster’, ‘Fat Magnet’ and ‘Reducta’ have a role in reducing the obesity epidemic.

Dr Ken Harvey AM

School of Public Health and Preventive Medicine Monash University, Melbourne. We welcome your le4ers ‐ send to info@pharmacydaily.com.au.