More safeguards needed for Herbal Medicinal Products: Study

[Guest guest]

What would happen if they set up a government watch dog agency.If they post how

many people take herbal remedies but no one ever complained - or they never

could connect a direct link.

AND if they did find reason to be suspect. It all sounds like a good thing to do

..... IF THEY were honest.

here's the article ...

 

More safeguards needed for Herbal Medicinal Products: Study

Post a commentBy Mike Stones, 05-Feb-2010

Related topics: Industry, Phytochemicals, plant extracts

 

Closer monitoring of adverse reactions to Herbal Medicinal Products (HMP) is

recommended by a new report published in the journal Toxicology and Applied

Pharmacology.

 

The report suggests that adverse reactions are under-reported and product

quality may be less than ideal. Herbs have a complex composition and there is

lack of information on the toxicity of medicinal herbs or their constituents, it

claims.

 

 

Safety assessment

 

 

The report, Assessment of herbal medicinal products: Challenges, and

opportunities to increase the knowledge base for safety assessment, recommends

five actions to protect the public.

 

 

The authors, Health Canada's Scott Jordan, David Cunningham and Robin Marles,

recommend:

 

 

Educating consumers, health care practitioners and the industry about potential

adverse reactions.

Using Poison Control Centre data to augment available reports suspected to be

linked to HMPs.

Encouraging authors of scientific publications on HMP adverse reactions or

toxicity information to provide more information.

Using omics and predictive toxicology in the toxicological assessment of HMPs to

provide integrated assessments.

New active surveillance methods such as community-based surveillance by

pharmacies, hospitals, retailers to detect safety signals related to HMPs.

 

Although the public perceives the risk from HMPs to be low, potential harm can

arise from a inherent toxicity of herbs, warns the report. It also highlights

dangers associated with contamination, adulteration, plant misidentification,

and interactions with other herbal products or pharmaceutical drugs.

 

 

Toxicological assessment

 

 

" One of the challenges in toxicological assessment of herbal products is

determining the applicability of data on isolated phytochemicals to the

" real-life " situation where whole plants or plant extracts are used, " note the

report's authors.

 

 

No one from the Canadian public body Health Canada was available for comment

before publication.

 

ref:

http://www.nutraingredients-usa.com/Product-Categories/Phytochemicals-plant-extr\

acts/More-safeguards-needed-for-Herbal-Medicinal-Products-Study/?utm_source=News\

letter_Product & utm_medium=email & utm_campaign=Newsletter%2BProduct

 

Ed Kasper

www,HappyHerbalsit.com