ANH alert: Fundraising for legal action starts in earnest to protect herbs in Europe. Will you step up to the Plate?

Please forward this information widely!

Yesterday we sent out a press release to the European herbal sector predominantly, but also as a general alert to let you all know that we are actively fundraising again.  Today, we follow up with the call to action to recipients of our alerts—most of whom are avid users of natural medicine and practitioners.

If we don’t act together, we could see thousands of products decimated from European markets from 1st April 2011.

•    Read our intended strategy as a very brief summary
•    Watch a 5 min ‘call to action’ video [please forward this as widely as you can]

Call to Action

We are fundraising for each stage of the action separately, so that you know where your money is going and what it’s being used for.  We urgently need to raise £90,000 (€100,000 $140,000) to fund the legal costs of the first stage of the action, which will bring the case to the Law Courts in London.  The intention here is to gain a reference to the European Courts.

Following are important messages to practitioners and consumers respectively.

For Practitioners:
We are willing to put everything on the line to help you safeguard your continued access to important herbal products, but we can only do this if you are willing to step up and support this action. 

• Please consider donating £20 per month for a period of 6 months. 
• Please also forward the link to the 5-minute ‘call to action’ video as widely as you can and make sure your patients know what is happening so they too can have a voice.
• Please network this message as far and wide as you can through Facebook, Twitter and any other social networking sites
• Subscribe to our alerts to keep up with future developments

For Consumers:

• Anybody can donate in any amount, but we are also happy to accept cheques, postal orders, bank transfers etc.  Large donations are always welcome.  (It’s worth remembering that the majority of the funds needed for our last legal challenge on food supplements (2003–5) were raised from many people across the world donating small amounts such as £5 and £10.)
• Please forward this link to a 5-minute ‘call to action’ video to your friends and contact lists which explains what is happening and ask them to subscribe to our alerts
• Please also use your Facebook and Twitter pages to spread the message as far and wide as you can

How to donate

Setting up a regular donation couldn’t be easier via www.anh-europe.org.  Please click on the ‘donate’ button on our website, where you can choose the recurring payment option.  Please remember to put ‘herbal challenge’ in the comment area on the PayPal screen and your donation will then be transferred to our dedicated bank account for the THMPD legal action.

We hope that your contributions will provide the necessary funding for success in Stage 1 of the action.  Stage 1aims to ensure the case is expedited to the European Court of Justice.  If we are successful in Stage 1, we will again ask for your help with Stage 2 in the European Court of Justice, where there will be everything to play for!

We are committing, free of charge, our in-house expert team as well as our resources to ensuring your access to traditional medicinal cultures has the best chance of survival.  Together we can do this!

For those outside of Europe who are passionate about herbal medicine, this lawsuit could be just as relevant.  If the European model remains unchanged, it could come to roost in your country some time in the future.  Such is the importance bestowed on European regulatory systems by other countries pushing for global harmonisation of rules affecting natural medicines.

Further reading

The ANH-International press release, ‘Pressure against EU herb laws mount’
The joint ANH/Benefyt position paper explains our united strategy in detail.

ANH-Intl on www.facebook.com/ANHInternational
ANH-Intl on twitter.com/anhcampaign

ANH-Europe homepage
ANH Nurture Traditional Medicine Campaign page