Herbalista Medica - Research Ethics

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Research to Stop Vivisection

Research to Stop Vivisection

Research methods based on clinical evidence are needed.

Stop Vivisection with a one-million signatures have petitioned the European Parliament that they should abrogate the Directive 2010/63/UE by 2014 and was successful before the legislative authorities in 2015:

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“Having taken into consideration both ethical reasons against animal experimentation and scientific evidence, which cannot prove that ‘animal models’ are transferable to humans, we ask the European Commission to abrogate the Directive 2010/63/UE about the protection of animals for scientific use and herewith present a new proposal aimed at abolishing animal experiments by making it compulsory for biomedical and toxicological research to utilise data suitable for humans."

We demanded a quality jump in surrendering cruel research methods such as techniques involving poisoning, blinding, amputation, torture with aggressive substances, in favour of long-awaited moves in research methodology, which should be aimed at employing adequate, common sense and more reputable and effective substances.

High Therapeutic Index of traditional medicines

High Therapeutic Index of traditional medicines

Natural substances enjoying wide margins of safety, similar to those of foods, provided they are prepared according to common sense traditional methods do not, usually, need finding out the effective dose (ED50), the ratio with the toxic dose (TD50) and lethal dose (LD50), since possible side effects are comparable to those of foods, generally milder than drugs.

For example, extra virgin olive oil with its reputed cardiovascular benefits might have a toxic or lethal dose of about half litre, a quantity which traditional experience prevent us from drinking as one dosage!

Ampio indice terapeutico di piante e funghi medicinali

Similarly, studies on medicinal mushrooms have been superfluous: the LD50 of Coriolus versicolor has been demonstrated to be of 18gr/Kg mice, almost 1,8% of body weight after 90 days of administration of acqueous concentrated extract, which is a higher dose than the generally recommended one of 3grams, 3 times daily of picked fresh mushroom (Barros et al 2016).

Another review on Grifola fondosa (Maitake) has been found to be toxic at dosages between 5-20% of body weight in animal models, an impossible proportion of the daily human diet (Chu et al 2002, Mayell 2001).

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The race for Western innovative scientific discoveries has often been lacking solid empirical and historical foundations and been directed to isolating new chemicals, albeit copied from chemical structures of plants, which have caused serious side effects. The doctor, in order to compensate for the latter is turning to polypharmacy, rarely supported by adequate scientific evidence (Langan e Shajahan 2010, Stoller et al 2008, Br Med J 1980, Shorvon & Reynolds 1979).

The pharmaceutical industry needs to produce a single reproducible pharmacological substance after much research in vitro, in vivo and,eventually, with double-blind randomised trials on wide populations, in order to standardise a single pharmacological activity for the average person. The tested substance is then patented and sold to the masses, despite the fact that any patient’s individual requirements might be considerably above or below average.

Ampio indice terapeutico di piante e funghi medicinali

The study of traditional medicine has been considered phenomenological, qualitative research and expert opinion of level V, at the base of the pyramid of current scientific evidence (Morshed e Bhandari 2008).

The debate is with quantitative methods, the importance of which is determined by measures of mass epidemiology (Bagnato 2009). This is why studies of groups in double-blind randomised trials are considered the top of the pyramid of scientific evidence.

Research to Stop Vivisection

Historical holistic visions of each system of traditional medicine overturn the modern pyramid of scientific evidence. Saint Thomas D’Aquino regarded that the unity of mind, body and spirit, the phenomenological and the physical, as one reality of top priority (De Robertis & Brookdale 2011). This vision is shared in most holistic traditions and is bound to the role of ethics and spirituality.

Practical examples of modern methods that are qualitative include collecting data from clinical cases as well as individual patients’ interviews (Wardle et al 2010; Wolf 2008). The doctor may benefit from a balanced combination of information from clinical cases and postal or electronic surveys, a mix of intimate and less complex data that can be quantified as well.

Besides blood tests and medical investigations, there are various measures within differential diagnosis that can account for complex and dynamic clinical manifestations and routines and can be realistically integrated with both Eastern and Western traditional analytical methodologies.

In conclusion, clinical needs demand a shift in ethics from evidence-based medicine (EBM), which is based on experimental epidemiology and quantative data (which is restricted to molecular medicine), to evidence-based practice (EBP), which should rely on clinical evidence based both on molecular and on physical science, the latter being suitable for measuring energetic aspects affecting human health, such as, for example, electrical and electromagnetic vibrations that are generated by human thought and heart functions (Martin 2004).

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