Jump to content
IndiaDivine.org

herb regulation

Rate this topic


Guest guest

Recommended Posts

Guest guest

Dave

 

I think the issue of AA containing herbs is not so black and white.

I've researched the issue of AA induced kidney failure pretty

thoroughly and there are now many apparent incidents of this

worldwide,

most of which do NOT involve drug use or adulteration. However, the

amount of AA present, even when consumed over a long period of time,

should not have caused this kind of toxicity. The whole matter is

really suspect, but the weight of opinion and regulatory action is

rapidly building momentum against the use of AA containing herbs.

Luckily none of the true culprits is actually used much, if at all,

in

american TCM.

 

I am not sure we should try and make a public case for the supposed

safety of herbs like guang fang ji because they were not even

considered that safe traditionally. I am concerned that drawing

undue

attention to this matter may open a whole pandora's box regarding

chinese herb safety in general. In the process of discovering that

we

cannot justify the safety of guang fuang ji based on modern

standards,

the same might be found to be true for numerous other herbs. I might

be willing to sacrifice guang fang ji to avoid this scenario. I

think

its more important that non AA herbs like han fang ji and hou po do

not

get swept up in the AA hysteria, as they did in france, I think it

was. I know this is obviously a slippery slope, but it is the

" slope "

versus the " box " .

 

Another alternative is one I might actually consider supporting.

Which

is that many chinese herbs should be available only from the offices

of

licensed practitioners. In personal communications with the FDA, I

get

the impression that they are willing to work with our profession to

maintain our state licensed access to chinese herbs if we join with

them to help curtail the sale of such products directly to the

general

public. After all, none of the cases involving AA toxicity (or

ephedra

deaths) involved a licensed TCM px and the FDA knows this. But we

will

just get stomped with the product manufacturers if we just deny the

safety issues altogether.

 

Personally, I think most internal self medication, except for self

limited ailments, is inherently unsafe, whether drug or herbal.

Also,

were we to gain something akin to professional prescribing control of

our pharmacopeia, then those who needed our products for chronic

illness would have to visit us, not self medicate. So, manufacturer

advertising would shift to directing consumers to px for alt. health

needs instead of to mothernature.com. This may be a bitter pill to

swallow for free traders, but worldwide, as natural medicine becomes

mainstream, more regulation, not less, seems to be the rule.

 

I think we need to act now to get herb regulations that protect the

consumer AND our profession. The pure libertarian stance will

backfire

on this issue, as the general public fully accepts the need for some

regulation of medicines. If we don't help craft these regulations,

we

will be in a very awkward position. The regulators will regulate the

herbs singly and we will see our formulas slowly dismantled under

this

guise of safety.

 

This is a shame, because we have a great professional safety record.

But chinese herbs by themselves do not. The reason they work so well

in

the hands of an experienced prescriber is their potency in full

strength formulae. All myths aside, this same potency has much

greater

(not lesser) potential to cause side effects when the herbs are

misprescribed. We thus need to strongly distance ourselves from

those

who would indiscriminately market ma huang and eucommia and ginseng

to

teenage males, etc. This would be a permanent solution to this

dilemma, rather than having to fight this battle over every problem

herb or incident. I don't even want to give the impression that

there

is anything similar about what I do and what a health food store

clerk

does, do you? So why not just cut our losses now and join the

establishment for this one?

 

, acuman1@a... wrote:

> We need to do a lot more than let the AHPA provide help. We ned to

organize

> now and work to get the ban halted asap.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You are posting as a guest. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
×
  • Create New...