Tea Tree And The Law

Imagine a perfect world. Imagine a world where biochemists search the natural world - and discover that all the medicines that we could possibly need are there. Imagine that safe, potent medicines are easy to extract from common plants... A wonderful world? Well no, not really. You see, we wouldn't be allowed to use them. Maybe you are surprised at such an outrageous claim. Sadly this is just a description of the world that we actually live in.

The way in which we use natural products like Tea Tree and other Essential Oils is controlled by laws. All over the world, the ways that we describe their therapeutic properties, and the things that we are allowed to say when selling them, are heavily regulated...

This is principally about the regulations in the USA as they are enforced by the Food & Drugs Administration (FDA). Similarly, laws in the UK are enforced by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) – and British laws are being quickly superseded by the laws of the European Union.
However, laws throughout the rest of the world fall into line with these because it is supposedly within the interests of everyone to have unification across the globe. So wherever you live, it is likely that the converging laws of the US, the UK and Europe are the model for the regulations applied to you…

The main beneficiaries of these laws are undoubtedly the multinational pharmaceutical companies. The pharmaceutical companies have helped transform the world we live in - for the better. Most of the research into new medicines is now funded by them, not by national governments. This research is very, very expensive. And the process that the law-makers make them undergo to license a new medicine is very strict, and they have to pay outrageous amounts for that! The simplest of approval procedures might now start at £250,000. For most medicines the real cost is likely to be in excess of £10,000,000. Sometimes much more. Because many promising new medicines turn out to be non-starters, and because many don't live up to early hopes about effectiveness and safety, the pharmaceutical companies now regard the average cost of bringing a successful new medicine to market as being £100,000,000. Somehow, they have to recoup that...

Trying to get their money back isn't about greed or selfishness. Needing to make some profits to repay their huge investment isn't unreasonable. It's just arithmetic. If we don't elect governments that will make us pay huge taxes to raise money to fund medical research and give us free drugs, then we must accept the reality that someone else is going to have to find the money - and they will want their gamble to pay off when they get it right.

Now don't just go blaming the pharmaceutical industries! It is so easy to aim the criticism at them - and it has become quite fashionable now. Some folks just can't help getting hot under the collar at the mere mention of big business, and the drugs companies are easy targets for the most vehement attacks. But if you would like to see things change, that won't help...

So instead of taking the easy route and blaming the pharmaceutical companies, who should you blame? Well, it is a problem with the law. Not a problem with corrupt lawmakers - just a problem with the laws that we have... Quite simply, the laws that seemed very easy and obvious a few decades ago have turned out to be cause of the biggest problem that we face today. The laws that were framed in the 20th century to solve problems inherited from the 19th century, have now resulted in a terrible obstacle to progress in the 21st century. How?

Well, it goes like this. In the 19th century, and in the early 20th century, there were so few remedies for so many of the world's ills that crooks made an easy profit from fake medicines. Many of us have heard of the phrase "snake oil" to describe something worthless, but often we don't realise where that phrase originated. It comes from the days when con men in the US and UK would sell things off the backs of wagons to the gullible public - and the name "snake oil" was actually used to describe the most notorious of these, a completely useless cure for cancer. Obviously it was necessary for this to be stopped.

When the British Government decided after the Second World War to start the UK National Health Service, part of the legislation concerned what could be described as a "medicine". They said that something could only be sold as a medicine if it had been tried, tested, approved and licensed. What a good idea! It sounds so obvious now, doesn't it? It stopped unscrupulous types from selling snake oil, and it ensured that all medicines were properly evaluated.

(Did you know that the only testing that was done before aspirin went on sale was that a chemist crushed up a tablet and sprinkled it in a goldfish bowl? The fish survived, so they sold the medicine!)

In the UK the 1947 Medicines Act has been repeatedly beefed up, and is enforced by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Don't get on the wrong side of them! Now the power is being transferred to the EEC lawmakers who are even more strict and unimaginative. In the US, the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA) has had a similar role enforcing similar legislation. These modern laws have (almost) eliminated the open sale of fake remedies, but the companies that manufacture approved medicines have become fantastically prosperous. Because of the power of these wealthy multi-national companies, and because of the economic power of the nations where they are based, everyone else in the world is being forced to live by the same rules. (India struggled for a while, but gave in eventually.) All of which would be fantastic - apart from the fact that there is a problem in all this...

So what is the problem? Quite simply it is this. The laws that were drawn up 50 years ago said that no-one should be able to claim therapeutic properties for anything they were selling for the treatment of "adverse medical conditions" unless it had been tested and licensed as a medicine. OK? And that to be licensed as a medicine they should submit this substance for proper testing. OK? And that they should pay for any testing that they requested. OK? Yes, everything OK so far. And they could patent anything they had invented, so that they could be sure of getting some profits back to reimburse themselves for the hard work of discovering something new. OK? Yes, definitely that is all OK! That ensures a system where clever people are motivated to go looking for useful medicines that benefit us all because then they can be rewarded for their efforts. OK? No, actually - just one drawback...

The drawback is about the word "invented". Because "invented" isn't the same as "discovered"....

If clever biochemists invent something that has never existed before, then they can quite properly patent that new invention and protect their intellectual rights accordingly. Back in the 1940's, the inventions that came to mind - things that had changed the world - were things like aspirin, penicillin and DDT. Aspirin and penicillin had started off as "discoveries" of novel compounds in the natural world, but had then been synthesised and modified and had then become "inventions". So that was the model of scientific progress that the lawmakers thought it was best to encourage...

But science has changed. That's what science does best. It would be wonderful to say that as scientists have become smarter at discovering useful new medicines, that we have all benefited. But that hasn't always happened. Why not? Because scientists don't get rewarded for "discoveries", they only get rewarded for "inventions". The law says that if a new medicine is an "invention" then they can patent it and get some rewards for their efforts - but if the new medicine is a "discovery" then they can't. And naturally occurring mixtures are only described in law as "discoveries" and not as "inventions". It all started off as so sensible, and now it all seems so crazy!

So, to summarise... If scientists do what we want, and examine the natural world, and discover safe and effective new medicines that are freely available to everyone, then they get no reward for that. So they won't look. (At least, no-one will pay them to...) But if they can concoct hideously expensive, synthetic compounds of dubious efficacy, with worrying side-effects, then they can patent them and possibly earn a fortune (for their employers). Is that really what we want?

The madness of this situation is highlighted by the fact that modern biochemical techniques make it easy to screen huge numbers of naturally occurring compounds and make useful predictions about their therapeutic use. Natural scientists are immensely excited by the possibilities. But any useful new substance won't be immediately submitted for approval as a medicine. Instead, they will be handed over to chemists who will attempt to isolate just one component with useful therapeutic properties, and to invent some chemical modification of that, then to devise a way to artificially synthesise this new compound - then to patent the process. The result of all this is that is increasingly unlikely that we will ever approve natural compounds as medicines.

So that is why the use of Tea Tree will always be restricted. The Essential Oil known as Tea Tree is a naturally occurring mixture that can never be patented, therefore no-one will ever pay the enormous sum of money to have it tested as a medicine. Therefore even though it has many valuable properties the large pharmaceutical companies will never promote it, and will continue to apply pressure for restrictions to continue that limit its use by everyone else.

Whether or not you are convinced as to the efficacy of Tea Tree, isn't that a crazy situation? Even if it isn't Tea Tree but something else that is discovered to be fantastically effective, why have we tied our hands so that we can't use the things that the natural world has already invented for us?

This madness is even worse for those who believe something of the principles of complementary therapy. This philosophy includes the conviction that if plants make the effort to make an oil that is a mixture of dozens of different components then they do this for a reason. (This logic is supported by evolutionary biologists who insist that any organism will only succeed if there is a reward for the actions that require some expenditure of effort.) Many complementary therapists believe that it is the complex balance of compounds in the whole oil which is responsible for healing, not just one ingredient - every component is there for a reason. In this philosophy it is of particular significance to pay attention to the wholeness of the complex mixture given to us by the natural world. That is what is meant by the term "holistic" - it isn't just about the whole patient, it is about the whole remedy as well...

But in the commercial world, the clever chemists are obsessed with disregarding the wonderful complexity of natural mixtures. They are paid only to isolate and test individual ingredients in the hope that one of them can be patented. That isn't what was envisaged by the law-makers of the 1940's. But that is what has us stitched up now. We need to change the laws. Not just the letter of the law, we need to change the spirit of these laws. We need to encourage the wonderful possibilities open to us now to discover useful new medicines that already exist in the natural world!

Back to Tea Tree... There is a great deal of evidence to suggest that this essential oil is extremely useful. Laboratory testing has indicated time and time again that Tea Tree Oil is very effective at killing off a vast range of bacteria and funguses that cause illness. It is effective at killing the staphylococcus bacteria that cause lots of infections in humans - including the methycillin resistant staphylococcus aureus or MRSA that is scaring so many people who need a hospital visit. And it also seems to be effective at killing the funguses responsible for skin infections like athlete's foot. And maybe even the viruses that cause verrucas and warts... So is anyone evaluating it as a medicine? No. Is anyone following up the fantastic possibility that it really has anti-viral properties? No. Why not? Because there is no profit in that. There is no money to be made in discoveries in the natural world, only in inventions of synthetic pharmaceuticals... How sad.

There is just one chink of light... All over the world there are doctors, nurses, podiatrists (chiropodists) and pharmacists who are using Tea Tree and recording the results. And they are finding that it is effective. Effective against MRSA and against athlete's foot, and against verrucas, and against lots more besides. They are getting great results - but sadly nothing is changing yet. They are all intimidated by the establishment that employs them, and unable to make any real changes to what they are permitted to do...

So folks... What are you going to do? If you think that moaning about the power of the multi-national pharmaceutical companies is going to effect change then you are probably wrong. That hasn't worked so far. Being aware of the problem, and moaning at the politicians is perhaps the only thing that you can do.

And are you one of the doctors, nurses, podiatrists (chiropodists) and pharmacists who are using Tea Tree Oil and recording the results? Did you log on to this website hoping that it would provide the evidence that other people have found the proof that you are right? Sorry! It's not that easy. You are one the folks who are compiling the evidence that Tea Tree Oil is useful - and that the law needs changing. So stop looking for other people to solve the problem for you - record your results, be proud, and publish them where everyone else can see them. Send in your results and we will publish them on this website for you. (Anonymously, if you insist.) Just go to the Contact Us About Tea Tree page, and send us an email with Subject: Tea tree.

Please, you can help change this crazy situation!

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