Sometimes governments actually do something good. The Australian Federal Government has “ignored the Australian Greens and anti-complementary medicine activists like Doctor Ken Harvey, from Friends of Science in Medicine, a “skeptic” group, and passed a reform package that protects traditional medicine.”
“The Therapeutic Goods Amendment (2017 Measures No. 1) Bill, which passed Parliament on February 15, supports positive claims for complementary medicines based on traditional evidence, and abolishes the current complaints system. A move, which will likely remove a mechanism of influence for the anti-CM (anti-complimentary medicine) lobby.
The Greens leader and General Practitioner, Senator Dr. Richard Di Natale was aligned with skeptics, whose platform is: “There is no alternative to Medicine.” A senate submission says: “The Australian Greens concur with the concerns of stakeholders including… Friends of Science in Medicine (FOSM)…”
“One of [Di Natale’s] ‘concerns’ was that people were being ‘misled’ by traditional claims about the effectiveness of complementary medicine. He, and the skeptics, wanted labels on complementary and traditional medicines to state: ‘This traditional indication is not in accordance with modern medical knowledge and there is no scientific evidence that this product is effective.”
Traditional medicine can include all manner of new age, Chinese and other forms of alternative therapies and potions than the natural remedies that God has ordained. It can, however, be easily seen that the attempt to marginalize them would have affected those who practice valid forms of natural healing.
The bill protects “informed choice.” It “allows complementary medicines to continue to make traditional use claims (i.e. what a particular complementary medicine has been traditionally used for). For consumers, it means they’re able to continue making informed choices because complementary medicines will continue to carry claims such as “traditionally used to relieve muscle aches and pains.”
Skeptics had argued against the use of traditional claims saying it was an “endorsement of pseudoscience.” Skeptics wanted the government to introduce mandatory disclaimers that complementary medicine products were “based on alternative health theories that have been discounted by modern medical science.”
As of June 30, 2018 the current Complaints Resolution Panel (CRP), which has included members of Friends of Science in Medicine and their supporters, will be shut down. This would reduce the power and influence of skeptic groups.
Australia’s medicines watchdog, Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), will be responsible for a new complaints system as of July 1, 2018. It remains to be seen how they will manage these issues, but for now, the law upholding complementary or traditional medicine removes the threat to those who practice natural remedies as God has ordained them.
As part of the Bill advertisements for complementary medicines will no longer need pre-approval with tougher penalties being used as a deterrent.
In a desperate bid to try to stop the Bill high-profile skeptics such as Doctor Ken Harvey and highly influential decision makers launched a scaremongering campaign in the media claiming the change would put public safety at risk.
Natural remedies are a staple among those who run health retreats and wellness centers. While many of the methods of healing that are in practice today by many practitioners are not part of God’s plan for natural healing, anything that affects them will also affect those who practice the true science of healing.
“Our institutions are established that the sick may be treated by hygienic methods, discarding almost entirely the use of drugs…. There is a terrible account to be rendered to God by men who have so little regard for human life as to treat the body so ruthlessly in dealing out their drugs… We are not excusable if through ignorance we destroy God’s building by taking into our stomachs poisonous drugs under a variety of names we do not understand. It is our duty to refuse all such prescriptions.” Temperance, page 88.