Sir, - I write to congratulate Trevor Sergeant on his letter to your newspaper (November 19th). I have raised this particular issue with 14 TDs and four MEPs in my area and I must say that I am heartened by the positive responses that I received from all of them, including members of Mr Cowen's own party.
It is no coincidence that the Irish Medicines Board has targeted St John's Wort for prescription only status. The pharmaceutical industry in Ireland, which funds the Irish Medicines Board directly, perceives St John's Wort as a threat to its drugs business. Is it not a little strange that the IMB should act on a product such as St John's Wort, when it did not act earlier in the year over the public furore surrounding the sale of the food supplement creatine, which clearly "modifies physiological function"? Could it be that creatine poses little or no threat to the Big Brother industry?
It is also strange that the discredited EU definition of a medicinal product, which has been on the legislative books in Ireland for decades, has suddenly been dusted down by the IMB to justify the banning of St John's Wort, at a time when every other EU country understands that the definition is so wide-ranging as to be unworkable.
Surely, if the IMB is to have any credit at all, it cannot "cherry pick" which products it chooses to ban on an ad hoc basis. By following the IMB line in this matter, the Minister has done a great disservice to both the fine tradition of herbalism in this country and to the thousands of people involved in the complementary healthcare industry. - Yours, etc.,
Declan Gardiner, Old Bray Road, Foxrock, Dublin 18.