© 2008 Natures Laboratory Ltd.
I met the man in the picture on the right in the sprawling market in Bukoba by Lake Victoria in North West Tanzania. He was running a herbal medicine stall. I don’t think his products were produced under GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) but this did not seem to be stopping him helping people to stay well with plant medicine.
Those three little letters -
What we do need is real Quality. But how do we define quality? The quality and authenticity of raw herbs are a good start but fresh? organic?, percolated?, alcohol concentration?, ratios?, press weight?, plastic bottles? It is a minefield without a map for producers. Developing a Simplified Pharmacopoeia talks about our partnership with University of East London to examine some of these key issues and set some standards.
Nature’s Laboratory now has probably the best equipped natural product lab in the UK. Peter Whitton one of the UK’s leading natural product chemists has joined us as our Scientific and Research Director.
Visibility is the subject of one of our main features – the visibility of herbalists and medical herbalism. Why, given the deep heritagof e and proven efficacy medical herbalism, does it remain in the shade of other late comers to the complementary scene? Barbara Griggs gave us some clear insights in her talk at this year’s NIMH conference. We thought them worth repeating in Invisible Herbalists?
Getting Connected is about us understanding what you need as practitioners and providing it. We learnt a lot from our 2007 Practitioner Survey about how you think we can improve our service. We want to help our customers to develop their own businesses and to do this Max Drake has joined us as our Practitioner Support Advisor to develop practical schemes which we hope will help both new and established herbalists and complementary practitioners. New projects being developed by Max include:
New Practitioner Scheme
Herbal Pharmacy
Practitioner Notice Board
The 2008 Practitioner Survey attached to this newsletter addresses some further issues of relevance to complementary health practitioners. You can complete it online.
Apiceuticals – Medicine from the Beehive – represents a personal passion over many years. The powerful medicinal properties of products from the beehive are at last getting the attention they deserve and Natures Laboratory in partnership with IPI (Institute of Pharmaceutical Innovation ) at the University of Bradford, are at the forefront of creating an International Apiceutical Research Institute.
For one reason or another Nature’s Laboratory’s research work has focused on Africa
which has brought us into contact with other organisations working there. In Focus
on Africa we share with you their stories too.
We want to share your stories too so please let us know what you are doing and send us details. In this newsletter we have details of London Community Herbalists and Bees for Development
Finally if you enjoyed reading this newsletter or would like to have your say about anything in the next one then please do let us know.
With all good wishes
James and Jackie Fearnley
Welcome to
Plant and Bee
CONTENTS
Getting Connected
FEATURES
Comment on a speech by Barbara Griggs at this year’s NIMH conference.
We look at various plant and bee projects in Africa that have inspired us.
Developing a Simplified Pharmacopoeia
Outlining our proposed research collaboration with the University of East London.
Results and comments on our Practitioner Survey
We do. But what is its purpose?
Apiceuticals -
Looking at propolis and other bee products as new natural medicines.
Quality control issues.
Herbal Medicine in NHS Primary Care
A look at how it actually works
An interesting educational initiative.
