whoa! whoa! back up there NHS website, homeopathy can do what!?

For reasons I wont go into here...i've just been on the NHS website for the contraceptive implant, and reading the section on "What else do I need to know?" came across this startling statement:

Some medicines, such as medication for HIV or epilepsy, or homeopathic remedies, such as St John's Wort, may reduce the implant's effectiveness. Ask your doctor for more details, or contact the FPA.

Homeopathic remedies can affect the contraceptive implant? Fuck, I would be warning them more about eating chocolate or sweets, or having sugar in their tea if it is actually homeopathic remedies that are having an affect! 

Of course they don't actually MEAN what they say (silly me for assuming they do! tsk tsk). They were trying to say that St. John's Wort can affect the contraceptive implant...which is NOT THE SAME THING AS HOMEOPATHY.

Homeopathy by definition has to have nothing in it, that is kind of what you get with the territory. Herbal remedies on the other hand DO have something in it, that could affect hormone based contraceptives. Here are a couple of papers to that effect:

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1365-2125.2003.01716.x/full

http://www.nature.com/clpt/journal/v74/n6/abs/clpt2003519a.html

I know I shouldn't, but I kind of expected better from the NHS (although this place still exists which does rankle me somewhat). Homeopathy and herbal remedies are two very different things, many herbal remedies provide future avenues for drug research, and many have produced drugs in the past (most famously asprin from willow bark). Drug companies can then PURIFY this, so you don't get all the other toxic shit in with it when you try and get rid of a headache. Give me an asprin over willow bark any day!

Of course most herbal remedies are just a steaming pile of ..... and only there to make money. You win some, you loose some.