Medicines agency 'year of blunders' is revealed as it pushes through herbal remedy ban

Consumers for Health Choice (CHC) has hit out at the Medicine Controls Agency for refusing to answer basic questions about plans to ban herbal remedies, and for "betraying" millions of Britons.(see above)

CHC, which fights for the rights of consumers to take food supplements at safe levels, also accused the agency of "a year of blunders and lies" and said the agency's recently released annual report was notable for its omissions.

Sue Croft, Director of CHC, said the MCA's pattern of behaviour was consistent, and echoed her own experience: "We surprised the health minister Lord Hunt just two weeks ago, when we proved advice given to him by MCA to be a blatant lie. To this day, the MCA assures everyone that a proposed EU ban on perfectly safe herbal remedies will go through a fair consultation process, whereas EU officials have confessed it is being rushed through for political expediency."

The reason for this haste, says Sue Croft, is that the Directive was proposed by Britain -indeed, by the MCA - and heads will roll if it fails. The MCA is determined not to lose face by putting the brakes on, even though they know perfectly well that this will be a very bad law."

She continued: "If the MCA succeeds, millions of consumers will be deprived of perfectly safe herbs, and Europeans will be denied - forever - any new herb which is found to have real health benefits."

The CHC has spoken out after the MCA has failed to respond to consumer questions about impending legislation. According to the CHC, the MCA will not even say which herbs would be affected.

"After months of stalling, the questions have again gone unanswered", says the CHC. "This despite the MCA annual report saying it had 'achieved all its high-level quality targets' and claiming a change in culture '...to one that is more open, fair, and values diversity'.

Accusing the MCA of betraying millions of consumers by working closely with Brussels to rush through a ban on herbal remedies for purely political reasons, CHC exposed just a few milestones of 2002, which reveals the MCA's culture remains more akin to "getting its own way at all costs". These included:

. February 2002 - A patients' support group called for urgent new safety warnings on a powerful acne treatment after it emerged that the drug had been linked to 14 suspected suicides in Britain. According to the MCA, since its launch in this country, doctors detailed 1,795 suspected adverse reactions. Twenty-three of them were fatal, with 14 suicides. More than 200 of the suspected reactions were psychiatric, with 20 reports of suicidal thoughts or attempts. There were 80 reports of depression and 13 reports of mood swings. The MCA said it did not feel action was needed in the UK.

. June 2002 - More than 100 children using a common inhaler asthma drug were recalled to an NHS hospital for tests after a five-year-old girl died. The MCA had been repeatedly warned about the potential side-effects of the steroid since 1996, yet only in 2001 issued new advice to doctors on prescribing it. Dr Geoff Todd, a consultant chest physician from Antrim Area Hospital, Northern Ireland, who raised the concerns, said: "Everyone has been very badly let down by the MCA."

. June 2002 - The MCA was criticised for allowing polio vaccines made from banned cattle products to be given to hundreds of thousands of people. Prof Sir Liam Donaldson, Chief Medical Officer, said the MCA should have taken extra care and acted more proactively to stop the potential contamination with BSE infected material in the late 1990s.

. July 2002 - Prof Donaldson said failures by the MCA could help erode public confidence in vaccines. He demanded far more rigorous checks by the MCA in establishing the truth of information given by drug firms, especially when companies and products were changing hands. He also found that the agency had supplied ministers and the public with misleading information over safety guidance, dates by which vaccines should have switched from UK-derived materials for routine manufacture, and expiry dates.