Society to host BA herbal medicines session
The Royal Pharmaceutical Society is to host a session on herbal medicines at the 2004 Festival of Science organised by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. This year’s festival takes place
at the University of Exeter, and the Society’s session, entitled “Can
herbs improve your health?”, will be on Monday 6 September from
1pm to 4pm in the university’s Queens Building.
The session will be addressed by four experts in herbal medicine. Speaking
on “Are herbal medicines good for your health?”, Jo Barnes,
University of London, will discuss popular herbal remedies and their
effectiveness. In an address on “Are herbal medicines really safe?”,
Peter Houghton, King’s College London, will talk about sources
of herbs, their identification, their testing and their preparation as
medicines. The third speaker, Brian Whittle, of GW Pharmaceuticals, will
discuss cannabis as a herbal prescription medicine. Finally, Elizabeth
Williamson, of the University of London, will consider ethnic herbal
medicines. The session will be chaired by Olivia Timbs, editor of The
Pharmaceutical Journal.
John Clements, the Society’s Science Secretary, said: “The
Society is pleased to again be associated with this prestigious event.
The use of herbal medicines in western society has increased greatly
during the past decade and this has been accompanied by a greater desire
by the public to know more about their medicines. This is an area of
work that the Society has been closely involved with and is a topic that
has continued to achieve strong public and media interest.”
Further information about the festival and details of how to book are
available from the BA (tel 020 7019 4941; website www.the-ba.net).
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