Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

Com­mu­ni­ty di­a­betol­o­gist at South West Re­gion­al Health Au­thor­i­ty Dr Claude Khan says if herbal­ists are reg­u­lat­ed they can work with doc­tors to bring bet­ter health care to pa­tients. Khan spoke yes­ter­day at a di­a­betes ed­u­ca­tion­al out­reach pro­gramme or­gan­ised by Unit­ed States phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal gi­ant Sanofi Lim­it­ed just days af­ter Health Min­is­ter Dr Fuad Khan said he had asked Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard to take ac­tion against herbal prac­ti­tion­ers who claim they could cure all ill­ness­es. The sem­i­nar at the Cou­va Dis­trict Fa­cil­i­ty was at­tend­ed by dozens of di­a­bet­ic out­pa­tients.

Khan said one in every 13 peo­ple in T&T suf­fers from di­a­betes."T&T leads the west­ern hemi­sphere in the preva­lence of di­a­betes and it is the lead­ing cause of blind­ness, car­dio­vas­cu­lar dis­ease, kid­ney, stroke heart at­tack, nerve dam­age, loss of cir­cu­la­tion and am­pu­ta­tion," he said.He said too of­ten di­a­bet­ic pa­tients dis­re­gard­ed pre­scribed med­ica­tion in favour of herbal reme­dies. He called for a reg­u­la­to­ry board for the herbal in­dus­try and said every qual­i­fied prac­ti­tion­er should be reg­is­tered be­fore ad­min­is­ter­ing treat­ment. "One of the prob­lems we have for herbal ther­a­pies is there is no stan­dard­i­s­a­tion or checks on what herbal ther­a­pies are com­ing in, as op­posed to pre­scrip­tion drugs, which have to go through the food and drugs reg­u­la­tions," Khan said. " A lot of stuff is be­ing brought in as nu­tri­tion­al sup­ple­ments and they don't have to go through the reg­u­la­tions but af­ter­wards they are be­ing sold over the counter to di­a­bet­ic and stroke pa­tients."

He said it was a myth that herbal reme­dies had no side ef­fects. Khan al­so said many prac­ti­tion­ers did not have the qual­i­fi­ca­tions to pre­scribe al­ter­na­tive med­ica­tion."You need to have some ex­pe­ri­ence and qual­i­fi­ca­tion in di­ag­nos­ing, pre­scrib­ing and sell­ing med­i­cine. You must al­so be able to do fur­ther tests," he said.He urged Gov­ern­ment to reg­u­late the herbal in­dus­try and en­force a stip­u­la­tion for qual­i­fi­ca­tion. He added that penal­ties should be en­forced for false ad­ver­tis­ing."Some herbal­ists claim their reme­dies can heal any­thing from kid­ney stones to can­cer, di­a­betes and high blood pres­sure, so many peo­ple are go­ing to the herbal­ists for nat­ur­al reme­dies. They stop their pre­scribed med­ica­tion and months lat­er you find that their con­di­tion has got­ten worse."

Khan said it was not true that the med­ical fra­ter­ni­ty was against herbal­ists. "We are reg­is­tered with the Gen­er­al Med­ical Coun­cil of T&T and the T&T Med­ical Board but there is noth­ing like that for herbal­ists or al­ter­na­tive prac­ti­tion­ers. The new board will reg­u­late the in­dus­try and we can work with them," he said.