Evidence for homeopathy builds

Bristish Homeopathic Association, 8 Mar 2012  

• Long-awaited English translation of Swiss study endorses evidence for homeopathy
• Swiss government enacts public desire to include homeopathy in state-backed health insurance
• Personal testimonies reinforce: ‘it works!’

Only recently published, the English translation of the 2006 Swiss Health Technology Assessment (HTA) report on homeopathy offers a clear endorsement of the benefits of this form of complementary medicine.

This important report addresses the evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathic therapy in everyday use (i.e. the real world), its safety and its cost-effectiveness.

The authors, Doctor Gudrun Bornhöft and Professor Peter Matthiessen, state: “There is sufficient evidence for the preclinical effectiveness and the clinical efficacy of homeopathy and for its safety and economy compared with conventional treatment.”

Following on from the initial publication of this report, a public referendum in Switzerland in 2009 supported the inclusion of homeopathy and other complementary and alternative medicines in the Swiss national health insurance, with 67% of the people voting in favour. Earlier this month, the Swiss government passed legislation to enact the referendum’s conclusion.

The 234-page HTA report exhaustively reviews the clinical research in homeopathy. It includes a summary of 22 systematic reviews of clinical trials, 20 of which show a positive direction of evidence for homeopathy. And an assessment of the original clinical trials of homeopathy in allergies and upper respiratory tract infections provides supporting evidence for the effectiveness of homeopathic treatment for these conditions.

Homeopathy’s effectiveness in treating allergies is backed by personal testimonies. Jenny, a 31 year old mother from Perthshire in Scotland who had suffered from severe allergic reactions since childhood, sought help from homeopathy after becoming immune to an increasing number of conventional anti-histamine medications. Following a consultation at an NHS clinic with a doctor who had also trained in homeopathy, Jenny was prescribed homeopathic medicine specifically to counter her allergies. Since the treatment, she’s not had an allergic reaction in over two years. Jenny credits homeopathy with curing her condition and says that “My only regret is that I didn’t seek help from a homeopath sooner, as I’m convinced it would have saved me from years of discomfort and illness”.

Speaking on behalf of the UK’s Faculty of Homeopathy, President Dr Sara Eames said:

"The publication of the Swiss HTA report on homeopathy in English makes an important contribution to the field of homeopathy research. Its thorough and constructive approach will contribute to informing patients, doctors and decision-makers who are evaluating homeopathy. Bornhöft and Matthiessen have given us an academically rigorous document which will enlighten more and better quality research in homeopathy."

The study was commissioned by Switzerland’s Federal Social Insurance Office (FSIO) as part of an overall evaluation of complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs).

About the Faculty of Homeopathy

Founded in 1844, and incorporated by Parliament in 1950, the Faculty of Homeopathy provides internationally recognised training pathways in homeopathy for doctors, dentists, vets, podiatrists and other statutorily regulated healthcare professionals. The Faculty has a long tradition of investment and participation in research.  The Faculty of Homeopathy’s journal, Homeopathy, is the only PubMed-listed research journal that specialises on homeopathy.

For further information, please visit: http://www.facultyofhomeopathy.org/

Jenny, who had previously suffered from severe allergies since childhood (as mentioned above), is very happy to discuss with journalists how homeopathy has helped her.

Related Article:

"The Many 'Shoulds' "  – Jan 26, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

(Subjects: .. Health, Prescription Drugs, Homeopathy, Food, Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

Coke, Pepsi make changes to avoid cancer warning

Associated Press, by Candice Choi, AP Food Industry Writer, Mar 8, 2012

NEW YORK (AP) -- Coca-Cola Co. and PepsiCo Inc. are changing the way they make the caramel coloring used in their sodas as a result of a California law that mandates drinks containing a certain level of carcinogens bear a cancer warning label.

The companies said the changes will be expanded nationally to streamline their manufacturing processes. They've already been made for drinks sold in California.

Coca-Cola and PepsiCo account for almost 90 percent of the soda market, according to industry tracker Beverage Digest. A representative for Dr Pepper Snapple Group Inc. was not immediately available for comment.

The American Beverage Association, which represents the broader industry, said its member companies will continue to use caramel coloring in certain products but that adjustments were made to meet California's new standard.

"Consumers will notice no difference in our products and have no reason at all for any health concerns," the association said in a statement.

A representative for Coca-Cola, Diana Garza-Ciarlante, said the company directed its caramel suppliers to modify their manufacturing processes to reduce the levels of the chemical 4-methylimidazole, which can be formed during the cooking process and as a result may be found in trace amounts in many foods.

"While we believe that there is no public health risk that justifies any such change, we did ask our caramel suppliers to take this step so that our products would not be subject to the requirement of a scientifically unfounded warning," Garza-Giarlante said in an email.

The Center for Science in the Public Interest, a consumer advocacy group, in February filed a petition with the Food and Drug Administration to ban the use of ammonia-sulfite caramel coloring.

A spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration said the petition is being reviewed.

But he noted that a consumer would have to drink more than 1,000 cans of soda a day to reach the doses administered that have shown links to cancer in rodents.

The American Beverage Association also noted that California added the coloring to its list of carcinogens with no studies showing that it causes cancer in humans. It noted that the listing was based on a single study in lab mice and rats.

Related Articles:

Soda-Cancer Link Suggested By Controversial Report On 4-MI, Cola Dye Byproduct

J&J starts removing toxins from baby products

J&J starts removing toxins

from baby products

70 Percent of Ground Beef at Supermarkets Contains ‘Pink Slime’

Fluoride: The Hard to Swallow Truth Documentary (Video)

That's a Smarties move! Nestle becomes first confectioner to ditch all artificial additives from its products 

The Large Families that rule the world

70 Percent of Ground Beef at Supermarkets Contains ‘Pink Slime’

ABC News, Mar 7, 2012 

Image Credit: Brian Yarvin/Getty Images 

Gerald Zirnstein grinds his own hamburger these days. Why? Because this former United States Department of Agriculture scientist and, now, whistleblower, knows that 70 percent of the ground beef we buy at the supermarket contains something he calls “pink slime.”

“Pink slime” is beef trimmings. Once only used in dog food and cooking oil, the trimmings are now sprayed with ammonia so they are safe to eat and added to most ground beef as a cheaper filler.

It was Zirnstein who, in an USDA memo, first coined the term “pink slime” and is now coming forward to say he won’t buy it.

“It’s economic fraud,” he told ABC News. “It’s not fresh ground beef. … It’s a cheap substitute being added in.”

Zirnstein and his fellow USDA scientist, Carl Custer, both warned against using what the industry calls “lean finely textured beef,” widely known now as “pink slime,” but their government bosses overruled them.

According to Custer, the product is not really beef, but “a salvage product … fat that had been heated at a low temperature and the excess fat spun out.”

The “pink slime” is made by gathering waste trimmings, simmering them at low heat so the fat separates easily from the muscle, and spinning the trimmings using a centrifuge to complete the separation. Next, the mixture is sent through pipes where it is sprayed with ammonia gas to kill bacteria. The process is completed by packaging the meat into bricks. Then, it is frozen and shipped to grocery stores and meat packers, where it is added to most ground beef.

The “pink slime” does not have to appear on the label because, over objections of its own scientists, USDA officials with links to the beef industry labeled it meat.

“The under secretary said, ‘it’s pink, therefore it’s meat,’” Custer told ABC News.

ABC News has learned the woman who made the decision to OK the mix is a former undersecretary of agriculture, Joann Smith. It was a call that led to hundred of millions of dollars for Beef Products Inc., the makers of pink slime.

When Smith stepped down from the USDA in 1993, BPI’s principal major supplier appointed her to its board of directors, where she made at least $1.2 million over 17 years.

Smith did not return ABC News’ calls for comment and BPI said it had nothing to do with her appointment. The USDA said while her appointment was legal at the time, under current ethics rules Smith could not have immediately joined the board.

Many vets with PTSD prescribed opioid painkillers

Reuters, By Genevra Pittman, NEW YORK, Tue Mar 6, 2012

(Reuters Health) - Veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars who are treated for pain are more likely to get very strong painkillers if they also have mental health problems, including post-traumatic stress disorder, according to a new study.

OxyContin Addiction

That's worrisome, researchers said, because some people who take opioids -- which include OxyContin and Vicodin -- abuse the drugs or overdose on them, and those who already have mental troubles may be most at risk.

"There's really been a culture of, 'Let's get rid of pain,' and I think unfortunately that pendulum may have swung too far," said Dr. Karen Seal, from the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Affairs Medical Center, the study's lead author.

"What we need to do now is really individually assess patients and talk to patients about what we know of the risks of opiates, especially in those with mental health problems," she told Reuters Health.

Prescriptions for the powerful painkillers have been on the rise not just among veterans, but in civilians as well, with more deaths and hospitalizations attributed to the drugs as a result.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the number of Americans who die of a prescription drug overdose has tripled in the past 20 years, with 14,800 people killed by an overdose in 2008 -- more than from heroin and cocaine combined.

Seal said that instead of taking opioids, some patients with pain and mental health problems may do just as well, or even better, with talk therapy, physical therapy and anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen.

She and her colleagues analyzed data from about 141,000 war veterans who were treated for pain at a VA medical center between 2005 and 2010, some of whom also had been diagnosed with a mental health disorder. Out of all patients, close to 16,000 were prescribed at least a three-week course of opioids.

The researchers found that while less than seven percent of veterans without any mental health problems were prescribed the powerful painkillers, close to 12 percent with a diagnosis such as depression or anxiety were given opioids, and almost 18 percent with PTSD got a prescription.

More than one-third of veterans with both PTSD and a drug use disorder who had pain were prescribed opioids.

Veterans with PTSD were also more likely than others to be prescribed multiple opioid drugs at a time, to get higher doses of the drugs and to receive early refills, Seal and her colleagues reported Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

And those treated with opioids were more than twice as likely as veterans not prescribed the painkillers to suffer an injury, overdose on drugs or alcohol or intentionally hurt themselves.

Seal said she thinks too many veterans are being prescribed opioids, instead of going to talk therapy and getting other types of pain treatment, for example.

"One of the things that we're trying to do is, if it appears that there may be a risk for unsafe use of opioids, to really bring that up honestly with the patients, and suggest that there may be other alternatives," she said. "It's important to be open to alternative ways of treating pain."

The study "further draws attention to the challenges of meeting the pain care needs of veterans with chronic pain and mental health conditions, particularly post-traumatic stress disorder," said Robert Kerns, the National Program Director for Pain Management at the Veterans Health Administration and a psychologist at Yale University in New Haven.

Kerns, who was not involved in the new study, agreed that it's important to develop other approaches for managing pain.

"At the same time I think it's still widely accepted that opioids may have a role in the management of chronic non-cancer pain, even in persons with mental health conditions," he told Reuters Health. But, "they need to be used responsibly and safely."

Seal said that veterans and their families should be open to the idea of talk therapy and other help for mental health problems.

"It's okay to accept mental health help," she said, "and that might actually help both their pain and their PTSD or other mental health problems."

SOURCE: bit.ly/hwxtTL Journal of the American Medical Association, online March 6, 2012.

Related Articles:

Exclusive: Undercover Grandma Catches Medicare Fraud on Tape

Johnson & Johnson CEO Bill Weldon retires in April

Obama administration to make drug companies disclose money paid to doctors

U.S. to Force Drug Firms to Report Money Paid to Doctors

Drug companies pay 17,000 U.S. doctors, report finds

US pharm industry creates diseases to cure them

Scientists credited on ghostwritten articles 'should be charged with fraud'

Koran burnings put the heat on ISAF

Fluoride: The Hard to Swallow Truth Documentary (Video)

Related Articles:

AP EXCLUSIVE: US says too much fluoride in water

Fluoride means lower IQs and more mental retardation


That's a Smarties move! Nestle becomes first confectioner to ditch all artificial additives from its products

Govt to Rein in Traditional Healing Practices: Official

Jakarta Globe, Dessy Sagita, March 03, 2012

A bartender concocts jamu, a traditional herbal drink believed by many to be
 a remedy for various ailments, at Jeng Ratu Jamu Bar in an agricultural
business exhibition in Temanggung, Central Java. (Antara Photo)

Related articles

• Obsession With Jamu: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
• Jamu Not Always What It Seems
• Islamic Healing on the Rise in SE Asia
• North Sumatra's Medicine Men
• Bad Medicine? Some Sick Indonesians Have No Choice

The Health Ministry has vowed to bring order to the mushrooming number of private clinics offering traditional healing options, where some claim to be able to provide total cures for even the most serious of ailments.

“If they are effective, we will support them. If not, we will of course stop them, because they would only take advantage of people,” said Slamet Riyadi Yuwono, the Health Ministry’s director general for nutrition, maternal and child health.

He said he was aware of, and had often seen on television, the many traditional healing practices in Indonesia that promise comprehensive cures for diabetes, hypertension and even cancer.

Slamet did not detail how the ministry would gauge whether a traditional healing practice was safe and effective.

The government is supportive of traditional medicine, he said, as long as the methods are proven safe and effective.

Slamet said one of the government’s health care strategies was to integrate traditional healing practices with conventional medicine.

The ministry official said there were now 30 hospitals that had integrated traditional healing with modern medicine. Slamet added that the government aimed to more than double the number of such hospitals to 70 by 2014.

He also said the Health Ministry would conduct further research on which plants possess medicinal properties and could potentially be used to make traditional cures.

“It is too late, indeed,” he said of the effort. “But it is better to be late than never.”

He said one of the problems with Indonesia’s traditional medicine was that even though the practice had a long history, scant written records existed.

Abidinsyah Siregar, the ministry’s director for traditional, alternative and complementary health practices, said one way to rectify that shortcoming would be to revitalize the Center for Traditional Cures and Health Services (SPPPT).

Abidinsyah said the SPPPT was established in 1985 but had not been active for many years.

Revitalizing an SPPPT in each province would also allow for the establishment of an information network to share the various traditional healing methods practiced across the archipelago. The network would, in effect, consolidate and disseminate local wisdom.

“We are a country with vast natural resources, but if we look into shops selling traditional medicines, most of the products come from China or Japan. Where are ours? This is what we need to put some order into,” Abidinsyah said.

Research conducted by the Health Ministry in 2010 showed that traditional medicines continued to play an important role in the country’s health services. More than half of those surveyed said they were loyal consumers of traditional healing potions, known as jamu.

Related Article:

Jamu: Why Isn't Indonesia's Ancient System of Herbal Healing Better Known?

Exclusive: Undercover Grandma Catches Medicare Fraud on Tape

ABC News, By Megan Chuchman (@megcourtney) and Brian Ross (@brianross), March 1, 2012

In the wake of an ABC News undercover investigation, federal authorities in Texas are investigating how an active 82-year-old grandmother was diagnosed as homebound, with a range of ailments that she did not have, including Type 2 diabetes, opening the door to potentially tens of thousands of dollars in Medicare payments for home health care, supplies and equipment she did not need.

A hidden camera recorded the undercover grandmother's visit to a doctor in McAllen, Texas, where she told the doctor and nurses she exercised regularly and, other than some hypertension and arthritis, was in excellent health.

Doris Ace, grandmother to ABC News

 producer Megan Chuchmach, went

undercover  as part of an ABC News 

investigation in McAllen, Texas.

"I've really enjoyed good health all my life, God's been good to me," the doctor was told by Doris Ace, the grandmother of ABC News producer Megan Chuchmach.

Yet the official certification sent to Medicare for home health care services indicate she was homebound and suffered from two internal infections, incontinence and needs "assistance in all activities, unable to safely leave home, severe sob," an abbreviation for shortness of breath.

Mrs. Ace had specifically told the doctor and her nurses she did not suffer from incontinence or shortness of breath.

On a patient referral form for home health care service, signed by the doctor, our undercover grandmother was also wrongly diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, even though she was not given a blood test which doctors say is the only way to authoritatively diagnose diabetes.

The overall diagnosis of the undercover grandmother's health could have provided the justification for what could be tens of thousand dollars a year worth of unneeded treatment and medical supplies and equipment, federal investigators said in an interview to be broadcast tonight on ABC News' "World News with Diane Sawyer" and "Nightline".

"That's fraud," said Tim Menke, senior adviser for investigations in the Inspector General's office at the Department of Health and Human Services.

"Our Medicare system is an honor system," said Menke after viewing the files and the ABC News undercover tape of the doctor's office visit. "And there's not much honor left in the system when you see things like that."

McAllen is considered a hotbed of Medicare fraud by the Inspector General's office which has already brought cases against a number of doctors and health care agencies and has many others under investigation.

"The fraud indicators are off the charts," said Menke of McAllen and surrounding towns in the Rio Grande Valley. "We have ten of the top physicians who have billed nearly $200 million in one specialty last year alone."

Nationwide, the Inspector General's office estimates that $60 billion dollars of taxpayer money is lost to unchecked Medicare fraud every year.

"We've seen it in Miami, Detroit and now in McAllen and it's very, very common," he said.

"They're lying in order to steal from you and me and the taxpayers," he added.

The McAllen doctor, Dr. Padmini Bhadriraju declined to comment to ABC News but denied any wrongdoing through her lawyer.

The lawyer, John Rivas, said the doctor acknowledged an "error" in the diabetes diagnosis for ABC News' undercover grandmother on the patient referral form but said, "this section was filled out by someone other than Dr. Bhadriraju," even though he confirmed the doctor did fill out the majority of the form and signed it in her handwriting.

Her signature served as certification that "my clinical findings support that this patient is homebound."

The doctor's lawyer said neither the doctor nor others in her office knew who filled in the incorrect diabetes diagnosis.

Rivas also said the doctor played no role in the official certification form sent to Medicare, although records show she billed Medicare for the review of the form and its plan of care.

"The records provided by ABC News do not support any allegations of fraud. It would be irresponsible journalism to air a story on Medicare/Medicaid fraud using this referral as an example when there is clearly no evidence of fraud," he added in a letter to ABC News.

ABC News ended the undercover investigation before any medical supplies or equipment could be billed to Medicare based on the false diagnosis.

Related Articles:

Dozens charged in massive U.S. auto insurance fraud scheme

Johnson & Johnson CEO Bill Weldon retires in April

Obama administration to make drug companies disclose money paid to doctors

U.S. to Force Drug Firms to Report Money Paid to Doctors

Drug companies pay 17,000 U.S. doctors, report finds

US pharm industry creates diseases to cure them

Scientists credited on ghostwritten articles 'should be charged with fraud'

That's a Smarties move! Nestle becomes first confectioner to ditch all artificial additives from its products

Daily Mail, by SEAN POULTER, 2nd March 2012  

Smarties along with other Nestle
 brands will no longer contain any
 additives

Nestlé has become the first major confectioner to remove artificial colours, flavours and preservatives from its entire range.

The company, which is behind leading brands including KitKat, Smarties and Quality Street, has changed the recipe of 79 products to remove suspect chemicals.

Nestlé’s Crunch bar is the last of the company’s products to have the chemicals removed as part of a programme that dates back six years.

In total, more than 80 ingredients have been replaced with alternatives, mostly from natural sources such as carrot, hibiscus, radish, safflower and lemon.

Other companies are also racing to drop artificial additives from products, particularly those targeted at children. The moves follow a Daily Mail campaign and research by British academics linking some artificial colours to harm, including hyperactivity, in children.

The Daily Mail first highlighted the use of suspect colours in products such as Smarties in 2005. It launched the ‘Ban the Additives’ campaign in 2007 following research which found that normal healthy children became hyperactive when fed a cocktail of additives commonly used in sweets, cakes, fizzy drinks and some medicines.

More...

• Super obese mother who weighed more than her partner and four children combined loses 31st in just two years
• 'Thick ,rich and delicious': Asda Easter egg beats Fortnum & Mason and Hotel Chocolat creations in taste test

The colours involved were tartrazine (E102); quinoline yellow (E104); sunset yellow (E110); carmoisine (E122); ponceau 4R (E124); and allura red (E129).

Subsequently, the Food Standards Agency announced a voluntary code calling on all food manufacturers to stop using these chemicals.

However Nestlé  has gone further and removed all artificial additives from its range. The changes meant that blue Smarties disappeared for a time until a natural colouring could be found.

Smarties chocolates are amongst Nestle's most popular products

The managing director of Nestlé Confectionery UK, David Rennie, said: ‘This is a significant milestone. Nestlé is proud to be the only major confectionery company in the UK to announce it is 100 per cent free of artificial preservatives, flavours or colours across the entire portfolio.

‘To achieve this, Nestlé Confectionery and our suppliers have worked very hard ensuring we don’t compromise and we maintain the same quality and taste of all our brands.’

The firm’s research found that three quarters (74 per cent) of consumers buying confectionery now look for natural products, which includes the need to be free from artificial colours, flavours and preservatives.

Sally Bunday of the Hyperactive Children Support Group, which has warned against the use of artificial additives for 35 years, welcomed the Nestlé announcement.

She said: ‘There is more than enough evidence to show that these artificial colours have an adverse effect on the well-being and behaviour of the children.

‘We are delighted to learn of the decision taken by Nestlé to stop using all artificial additives. I am sure many other companies will also decide to stop using questionable additives.’

Related Articles:

Is the food revolution just a great big fat lie?

J&J starts removing toxins from baby products

Fluoride: The Hard to Swallow Truth Documentary (Video)

Jamu: Why Isn't Indonesia's Ancient System of Herbal Healing Better Known?

Time.com, by IAN LLOYD NEUBAUER, Mar 1, 2012

A herbal seller gives a 'jamu' tonic drink to her customer in Jakarta on

 January 15, 2010. Many Indonesians take the traditional drink made from

 mix of herbs and roots from excotic plants and believe in its effectiveness 

as health tonic drink while men take it to increase stamina and sexual

power (Romeo Gacad / AFP / Getty Images)

In 1990, Irish journalist Susan Jane-Beers noticed a herbal medicine clinic in the corner of a hair salon in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, her adopted home. A victim of age-related chronic knee pain that conventional pharmaceuticals couldn't numb let alone heal, Jane-Beers decided to try jamu -- traditional Indonesian medicine.

The results astounded her. After three days of taking only one third of the prescribed dose of herbal pills, the pain had vanished, making her wonder if she'd found "the magic bullet of all time."

Jane-Beers spent the next decade researching the origins, myths, tightly guarded recipes and commercial applications of herbal medicine in Java, where plants have been used for medicinal purposes since prehistory. Her 2001 opus Jamu: The Ancient Art of Herbal Healing remains the only definitive English guide on the subject. It's also the most widely read outside Indonesia since Herbarium Amboinense, a catalogue on plants completed by German botanist Georg Rumphius in 1690 -- more than three centuries beforehand.

(VIDEO: Could Home Delivery Fight Malnutrition in Indonesia?)

A holistic therapy based on the notion that if disease comes from nature then so must the cure, jamu covers a dazzling array of teas, tonics, pills, creams and powders to cure -- and prevent -- every ailment imaginable. The ingredients are by definition cheap, widely available and simple: nutmeg to treat insomnia, guava for diarrhea, lime to promote weight loss and basil to counter body odor.

Jamu has also been used to treat cancer. In her book, Jane-Beers writes of a traditional healer in the city of Jogjakarta who apparently cured what had been diagnosed as a terminal case of cervical cancer with a tea made of betel nut, Madagascar Prewinkle and mysterious 'benala' leaves. Combined with a strict soya bean diet, the patient was said to have made a full recovery in 18 months.

Sound farfetched? A 2011 study by Virginia Tech's Department of Food Science and Technology on the soursop tree (the leaves of which are used to relive gout and arthritis in Indonesia) found evidence showing extracts from soursop fruit inhibit the growth of human breast cancer. Vincristine, one of 70 useful alkaloids identified in Madagascar Prewinkle, radically ups the survival rate of children with leukemia, while turmeric is being looked at as a treatment for Alzheimer's.

(MORE: What's Holding Indonesia Back?)

"Western medicine tries to destroy cancer but at the same time it destroys elements of the body. Jamu helps the body produce its own antibodies to fight the cancer by itself," says Bryan Hoare, manager at MesaStila, a wellness retreat in central Java that serves jamu shots with breakfast and employs a tabib -- indigenous healer -- for private consultations. "Coming from the earth, jamu also makes you feel good. When you take it you experience a positive feeling."

But if jamu is the magic bullet, why isn't better known in the West, where natural Asian medicines like India's ayurvedic system and Chinese herbal healing have been growing in popularity for years?

The answer can be found on the streets of Indonesia, where jamu is consumed regularly by 49% of the population, according to the country's Ministry of Health. Valued at $2.7 billion annually, the industry covers an incredibly wide gamut of products, from homemade tonics sold by street hawkers, to slimming powders, to cosmetics, to jamu for babies and postnatal care. Yet the bestselling in value terms are invariably the dodgiest: those claiming to boost sexual performance and or suppress appetite.

"Indonesians may well have been amused when Viagra was released in 1998," Jane-Beers comments on the popularity of brands like Kuat Lekali (Strong Man), Kuku Bima (Nail of God) and Super Biul Erection Oil. "They have had their own remedies for years."

(MORE: How Indonesia's Health Care System Let Me Down)

Then there's the association between jamu and white magic. Many indigenous healers insist on dispensing jamu on auspicious dates or in conjunction with animist spells that predate the arrival of Islam in the archipelago.

Mbah Ngatrulin, a Buddhist tabib I met in Ngadas, the highest village in Java, told me spells are the key and the jamu may as well be "mineral water." It's the kind of comment that prevents many GPs across Southeast Asia from endorsing jamu lest patients take them for quacks.

According to Charles Saerang, head of the Indonesian Jamu Entrepreneurs Association, the primary impediment to a worldwide jamu craze is that locally jamu products don't meet international manufacturing standards. That hasn't stopped entrepreneurs from buying raw herbal materials in Indonesia, processing them in India and Malaysia and selling them in the U.K. -- a market Indonesian made jamu products can't access. That's a double whammy for Indonesia, which loses out on value added by third parties and the chance to promote the jamu brand name abroad.

It's impossible to say when, or even if, jamu painkillers will be stocked at supermarkets and convenience stores in countries like the U.K. Yet inroads are already being laid by small businesses like the Origin Spa in Melbourne, Australia. There, highly skilled practitioners apply massage developed by 16th-century Indonesian royalty -- the founders of modern jamu -- with creams and oils containing turmeric, betel leaves, lives and crushed eggshells. There's a minimum two-month waiting list for Origin's five-day treatment that helps women regain their figures quickly, improve lactation and dispel wind, dizziness and aches and pains.

"It's surprisingly popular with the Asian mums throughout Australia," says partner Jessica Koh. "But it's still unfamiliar to most of the locals."

-- With reporting by Theo Manday / Ngadas

MORE: Can Ancient Herbs Treat Cancer?

More Articles:

 ASEAN to form partnerships to promote traditional medicine

Indonesia promoting medicinal herbs tonic scientifically

Turning herbs into cash

Now doctors prescribe herbal medicines

Central Java, Taiwan universities to cooperate in herbal medicine research

Ministry set to embrace ‘jamu’

Temulawak - Govt to make

 ‘temulawak’ ‘jamu’ an

icon of Indonesia

"The Many 'Shoulds' "  – Jan 26, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll)

(Subjects: .. Health, Prescription Drugs, Homeopathy, Food, Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

VirtualLight ~ Sandie Sedgbeer Interviews David Bennett (With Near Death experiences)

Near death experiences

Process of accepting his purpose

Cancer story

What's next? How he is fulfilling his purpose

Changes after returning from near death

Related Articles:

VirtualLight Videos

"Perceptions of God" – June 6, 2010 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll) (Subjects: Quantum Teaching, The Fear of God, Near-death Experience, God Becomes Mythology, Worship, Mastery, Intelligent Design, Benevolent Creator,Global Unity.... etc.) (Text version)

“… When a Human almost dies, they get close to the veil, very close. They are ever so close to the creator's energy and just barely touched by it. When their heart was stopping and their breathing was almost gone, before they were brought back to life with science, they got to touch the hand of God for just an instant. What they saw was magnificent! The energy before them was filled with love and light, filled with family, filled with beauty. There was no strife there. There was no punishment there or even the hint of it. And when they came back from that experience, listen to what they told you. It changed their lives, didn't it? Listen to each one talk about it, for they continued to say, "There is nothing to fear and death is something you experience as a normal transition." Blessed is the Human Being who experiences both death and birth and has the wisdom to report, "Oh, it's uncomfortable, but I'll get through it, because I've done it before." The person who has experienced a near-death experience is no longer afraid to die! What does that tell you? They have seen what is there and they embrace it! …”