unrecognized side effects/pregnancy

[Guest guest]

The Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine recently circulated a report

circulated by the UK Department of Health of a research study done

with rats in which teratogenic effects were found for ginseng. Scant

details were given. I didn't follow it up - I believe details can be

found on the DoH website.

 

 

-

" " <

 

Sunday, October 26, 2003 11:30 PM

unrecognized side effects/pregnancy

 

 

> , " Bob Flaws " <

> pemachophel2001> wrote:

> >

> > According to Robert Anderson, medical anthropologists have

documented

> > long-term use of traditional remedies in various cultures where

those

> > remedies have/are causing side effects unnoticed by the people

within

> > those cultures. Dr. Anderson conveyed this information to me when

I,

> > like you, argued as above. He told me that I was being naive. If

a

> > culture does not expect side effects from a particular therapy,

then

> > they may ascribe any such side effects to some other, unrelated

cause.

>

> Bob Flaws

>

> With this in mind, I was curious how you feel about the use of

chinese herbs in

> pregnant women. Isn't it distinctly possible that certain chinese

herbs may

> have teratogenic effects that were not ascribed to the herbs in

ancient times

> because the cause and effect were so far apart in time (compared to

> abortifacient effects, which are relatively soon after taking the

herb). I don't

> think just because an herb was considered safe in China for use in

pregnancy

> that it automatically gets a clean bill of health vis a vis

teratogenesis. Did the

> chinese even have a concept of herbs causing birth defects? Or

were certain

> herbs prohibited only when they were known to induce miscarriage.

A

> cursory survey of the materia medica seems to suggest the latter.

>

 

>

>