Anger at criticism of natural medicines

10:03am Thursday 1st June 2006

A DOCTOR has slammed critics who are calling for complementary medicine to be scrapped from the NHS.

Dr Helmut Roniger has been treating patients at his complementary medicine clinic above Summerlands Surgery, Starts Hill Road, Farnborough, for two years.

Treatments at the surgery include acupuncture and using herbs and minerals to help cure ailments such as arthritis and ante-natal conditions.

But complementary medicine practised in clinics such as Dr Roniger's has been criticised in a letter from 13 doctors including Nobel prize winner Sir James Black which was sent to 476 acute and primary care trusts across the UK.

The letter attacked a report, which was commissioned by Prince Charles, which said there should be more access to NHS-funded complementary therapies.

Also in the letter, the 13 doctors said homeopathy reviews have never produced any convincing evidence of effectiveness so the money should be spent on proven cures.

Dr Roniger said: "This letter was outrageous. The NHS should be a bigger church than just following a very narrow path.

"It is not a level playing field, we will never be able to have a similar level of research funding as the multi-million pound drugs like Herceptin."

One of his patients, 93-year-old Jane Gilchrist, puts her long life down to complementary medicine.

She takes extracts of hawthorn berries for her heart problems and also takes a pill which includes venom from black widow spiders.

Mrs Gilchrist has not taken any mainstream medicines for 23 years since she got into complimentary cures after developing gout in the big toe of her left foot.

The secretary of the Bromley Homeopathic Group said: "Years of it have built up my immune system. It gives your body the chance to fight back.

She added: "I have seen some miracles. I have seen a woman in a wheelchair who now walks because of the muscular skeletal department at the Royal London Homeopathic Hospital in Great Ormond Street.

"She flung her arms round the doctor and kissed him and she said I have been in a wheelchair for three years and now I'm walking again'."

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