Prince Charles peddles a “detox” tincture made from artichoke and dandelion

http://www.khaleejtimes.ae/DisplayArticle08.asp?xfile=data/international/2011/July/international_July1286.xml§ion=international

Professor calls Prince Charles “snake-oil salesman” (Reuters)

26 July 2011

LONDON - A leading professor of complementary medicine accused Britain’s heir-to-the-throne Prince Charles and other backers of alternative therapies on Monday of being “snake-oil salesmen” who promote products with no scientific basis.

Edzard Ernst, who is stepping down from his post as Britain’s only professor of complementary medicine at Exeter University, also said a long-running dispute with the Prince about the merits of alternative therapies had cost him his job — a claim Prince Charles’s office denied.

“Almost directly, Prince Charles has managed to interfere in my professional life and almost managed to close my unit,” Ernst told reporters at a briefing. snip

Referring to the prince’s Duchy Originals food company as “dodgy originals” he said the firm’s promotion of a “detox” tincture made from artichoke and dandelion was an example of how the prince peddled scientifically unproven therapies.

Kooky people :crazy:

pharmaceuticals were hard to come by in South America. The doctors turned to the native Brujas for herbal remedies to use in the meantime. Many of them work and I use them myself to this day. Chamomille especially has many medicinal uses as do coca leaves and Yerba Mate. I was given coca tea to relieve puma or altitude sickness.

Perhaps that professor was in tight with the pharmaceutical industry who make it a point to poo, poo home remedies every chance they get.

Sure there are some herbal remedies which work. Most of them, however, have nothing but the placebo effect. Science is science to everybody, not just in cases where you like it. Treating modern pharmaceuticals as a conspiracy theory, and relying on the completely unregulated $34 billion dollar a year "alternative medicine" industry is not just silly, it can be dangerous.

After all I was there. Were you?

attacks quickly.

I had my first gallbladder attack over 20 years ago and decided to try to take a natural, self-care approach.

I changed my diet and also regularly take dandelion root (tea or capsule) which is known to cleanse the gallbladder.

Many friends who have had gallbladder issues ask why I do that, and I say, "Because I don't want to undergo surgery if I don't have to -- like you guys did -- PLUS I don't have health insurance nor the funds to do so."

Sometimes it's common sense and not whacko. Native peoples have relied on natural remedies for thousands of years. We should pay more attention rather than dissing it, imho.



edit because I can't type or do anything :eyes:

Very effective. Dandelion is a wonderful blood cleanser, too, an all-around "spring tonic." I encourage dandelions to grow in my lawn, as well as several other medicinal herbs.

I applaud Prince Charles for promoting herbal remedies over toxic pharmaceuticals.

the flowers and leaves. Yummmmmm.

:thumbsup:

:hi:

rather try something natural - not surgery, too.

Oooooo. The prince got me fired. Ooooooo. He's selling things I don't like. Ooooooo, listen to meeeeeeeeeeee.

Someone need to call him a whaaaambulance.

n/t

the struggle of Science against whackadoodles who would peddle snail slime as a cure all if they could make a buck off it.

There's a word for alternative medicine that's been proved to work: medicine.

Much better to randomly stick shit you find in the woods in your mouth and claim it cures every ailment known to man. If it's "natural", "holistic", "organic", "homeopathic" or any other voodoo word du jour; it's fine to market it with no research whatsoever.

Decades of clinical studies and research is only for "BIG EVIL PHARMA" not for the quacks selling crap on QVC for a quick buck. Remember the real medicines are made by companies who just want your money, but the charlatans selling shit on late night infomercials aren't just trying to separate you from your hard earned cash.

Science is dead. I just took a sociology course last semester where the professor actually claimed that homeopathy was a legitimate field of medicine and an alternative to real medicine.

before big pharma was. Big pharma tries to stop the natural cures because anyone can grow healing plants and pharma will be out the big bucks. Homeopathic is a way for people to take control of their health instead of being doped up on prescription drugs.

It's based on the idea that if you take a small amount of a substance that causes similar symptoms to what you're facing add it to water to dilute it, shake it, hit it with a leather strap, add a drop of the diluted mixture to water and repeat many times over, through the magic of some kind of water memory homeopaths believe in you'll wind up with something more powerful than the initial substance even though by the end of the process you just wind up with water that has been stirred and spanked, and none of the initial substance with the supposed curative effect. In fact, homeopaths believe that the more steps between the little bit of possibly medicinal stuff and the pure stirred and spanked water, the more powerful the supposed medicine is.

That's just freakin' loopy.

And your image is broken.

because the FDA wants it that way

to say they all are is unscientific as wll since it describes a number of different tonics and treatments.

It doesn't work for you either. Sorry.

edit: and your image is still broken. Looks like you're hotlinking?

n/t

Homeopathic cures that have a C200 dilution which is D400 or 10^400 power. There are only 10^80 atoms in the known universe so these homeopaths apparently have access to 100s of universes.

turned into aspirin. saying that homeopathy does not work is an ignorant statement too since their are many homeopathic treatments, not all of which have been tested. the only danger of homeopathy is dangerous ingredients or using it to treat a deadly ailment.

Herbal medicine looks for a plant that might help with, say, headaches. Historically indicators of what would help were freqently really stupid things like the shape of the plant corresponding to the ailing body part, so really this was largely trial and error. Homeopathy would treat a headache by finding a substance that causes headaches, diluting it until it is no longer present, and then giving you the water it was diluted in (or sugar pills made with that water.)

remedy not homeopathy.

The British royal family generally are.

Homeopathy is something else: bullshit.

homeopathy doesn't

they did accidentally stumble on the use of nitroglycerin for treating angina.

why didn't the natural remedies cure that? they had plenty of time.

How anyone can say homeopathy isn't bunk with all of the scientific evidence provided is a true believer.

not so much in the US...no profits to be hard

That's a pretty good haul for shit that doesn't do anything.

"That's a pretty good haul for shit that doesn't do anything."

Much like American television and their networks...

I mean, come on.

http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/personalprofiles/theprinceofwales/atwork/theprincescharities/
'The Prince's Charities' is a group of not-for-profit organisations of which The Prince of Wales is Patron or President; 18 of the 20 Charities were founded personally by The Prince.

The group is the largest multi-cause charitable enterprise in the United Kingdom, raising over £100million annually. The organisations are active across a broad range of areas including opportunity and enterprise, education, health, the built environment and responsible business.

The charities reflect The Prince of Wales's long-term and innovative perspective, and seek to address areas of previously unmet need.

If you would like to get involved with The Prince's Charities, you can visit The Prince's Charities Community website and make a difference to other people's lives, and your own by becoming a member.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.looktothestars.org/celebrity/437-prince-charles
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://princescharities.org/

?100278

I figured it was non-profit.

I do apologize if you mistook that comment for a reasoned critique of the royal family's fiduciary activities, however.

We Scorpios stick together!

I can't speak to the efficacy of the dandelion and artichoke detox tincture, but i'm of the opinion that natural herbal remedies run the gamut from effective to total bs. :shrug:

They died really young from (now, thanks to medicine) treatable and preventable diseases.

Charles is a buffoon and a quack.

bitters, flavonoids, mucilage, saponins, tannins, and volatile oils in plants that have various biologic effects.

That certain plants have various medicinal properties is no more "magic" than certain foods having various nutritional properties. It's simple biochemistry.

Many common "modern" medicines were originally derived from plant sources, and continue to be synthesized forms of the active ingredients originally discovered through the analysis of traditional herbal medicines.

sw

Is GB FDA laws as lax as they are here and many other parts of the world; where as long as a drug is "natural" and the manufacturer makes carefully worded claims they can get away with selling anything they want.

If you analyze willow bark you will find salicylic acid. If you analyze wild yam you will find estrogen precursors. Digitalis was developed from isolating the glycosides in foxglove.

My point is that there are plants with medicinal properties, and that herbalism is not "magic".

I have no truck with commercial preparations, nor their claims. They are not practicing herbalism, they are selling patent medicines. People ought to learn the difference.

sw

plant and other remedies from ancient times.

The new movement of "natural cures" wants to avoid that pesky little requirement that you prove your claims.

The FDA that people around here want to demonize as protecting "Big Pharma" in fact does just the opposite and requires years of research from real medicine companies and let's the quacks sell any crap they want. If the FDA was actually even handed, Enzyte wouldn't still be sold on every channel on my TV. Instead we have Orin Hatch protecting pseudo-science and people falling for it hook line and sinker.

A good herbalist knows how to get the maximum benefit from their medicines and the bunk is what makes such a remedy work better than the stripped down, chemical versions. One of our maids in Chile was a Bruja. She knew her stuff which had been passed down to her through generations of women in her family.

she would have no problem with a double blind study perhaps?

came to her for remedies because right after WWII there was a shortage of drugs in South America so the doctors and hospitals turned to the native Brujas to find something they could use in place. Many of the herbals came from the Amazon and I know that PhRMA has scientists in the Amazon looking for plants than can be used for new drugs.

The "natural" cures industries can mash up any concoctions they wish and market them as they please.

Doctors and big pharma are well aware of medical potentials of plants they just believe in testing and identifying the functional components.

through families for generations. They are pretty well tested. Just because indigenous people don't do things according to our rules doesn't mean they can't come up with some good results.

No need to distort the issue with "indigenous people" appeal, but if the medicines work for the indigenous people, they will also work in a double blind study. Science doesn't care if the concoction was whipped up by indigenous people or martians. It either works or it doesn't and when selling any other kind of product you must be able to back up your claims with proof. The big natural cure industry has billions in ensuring that they are exempt from that simple concept.

whining about it. I believe though that big PhRMA will squash any attempts to do so. There is too much money to be made in synthetic drugs for them ever to want to compete with herbal ones that probably can be put on the market much cheaper for the consumer or even that the consumer can concoct in their kitchens. It's much easier to discredit them instead.

testing being done.

for people who are mortally ill or instead of traditional medical treatment.

...has more to do with society adopting clean water, washing hands and the introduction of antibiotics.

On the other hand, if you study pharmacology, you would know that most of our medicine (like digitoxin, and the fox glove plant) comes from plants. It's the method that those extractions are safely handled that separate herbal medicine from FDA regulated pharmaceuticals.

Some FDA trials are too short, and then we have sentinel events like someone dying before some drugs are recalled. Some doctors are buffoons for not spending more time on getting their patients to change habits, rather than prescribe, prescribe, prescribe.

pimping and propping up his druggie pals...

:)

I use dandelion root for gallbladder, milk thistle to cleanse liver. I have for years.

:hi:

:) My organs need a good rinsing. :)

to treat a deadly ailment as an alternative to real medicine for that ailment. he is just selling it as a health tonic. nor is there any evidence that anything in tonic harms anyone.

prozac is said to be placebo too.

you can't advertize a product as doing X,Y and Z; but then claim it's still OK to market the product because "it doesn't harm anyone".

So what we basically have here is a man claiming "My Woo is stronger than your Woo and you got me fired for saying so...".

I could just hear it... "A 'detox' tincture made from artichoke and dandelion? Rubbish! Everyone KNOWS you have to use Hen's Bane and the moss from the North side of a rock!"

I would assume he was at one point based on his training, but well... you'll see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edzard_Ernst

He seems to have worked in a university department that tested various alternative medicines for efficacy.

:thumbsup:

Somebody buy him a homeopathic lager!

You can get REALLY drunk off of this stuff!!!