A Consultant Rheumatologist, Prof. Femi Adelowo, on Tuesday cautioned public against indiscriminate use of herbs and concortion, saying there is no scientific proof of their efficacies.
Adelowo spoke with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the sidelines of the West African Rheumatology Conference organised by the Nigerian Society of Rheumatology (NSR) in LASUTH, Ikeja.
Theme of the ongoing conference is: “Rheumatology in West Africa: The Journey So Far.’’
Adelowo, who works with the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), advised people with musculoskeletal diseases to avoid visiting herbalists for cure.
“We know that traditional medicines do not work; they are very harmful and have no peer review.
“Often times, out of 1000 people who took herbal medicines, we see only one person coming out to testify of how he took one herb and it worked.
“What about the remaining people? They should have also been invited to come and say it didn’t work for them,’’ the expert said.
The consultant rheumatologist advised patients to accept and use only orthodox medicine.
According to him, any drug given to patients usually went through certain steps and procedures.
“Those steps and procedures on the average take about seven to eight years.
“Because, it is first tried on animals to be sure it does not kill them before it is tried on human beings,’’ he said.
Adelowo said that the treatment and diagnoses of rheumatological diseases were expensive, urging the three tiers of government to subsidise some and make them affordable for people.
He mentioned some of the diseases as Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (Lupus), Gout, Psoriatic arthritis, Scleroderma, Osteoarthritis, Juvenile idiopathic Arthritis, among others.
The consultant urged the Federal Government to boost the National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) and ensure that it was good and effective.
Adelowo said that the scheme should be implemented in a way that would make people to pay minimally and enjoy maximally. (NAN)
