Herbal medicines ‘unregistered’ and ‘unreliable’
Concerns by health professionals mount after new findings reveal ‘so called’ herbal medicines sold in Australia are either not registered for sale or their contents differ to the legally registered items, prompting warnings about what their patients are actually buying.
Dr Ian Musgrave says unregistered herbal medicines is a major concern for health professionals.
Dr Ian Musgrave, University of Adelaide toxicologist, pictured, claims health professionals are likely to be concerned about herbal remedies and the interactions they may have with prescription drugs, such as steroid drugs and the blood thinning drug, warfarin.
The survey, conducted by a team from the University of Adelaide’s School of Medical Sciences, investigated 121 products, all claiming to be herbal remedies for arthritis, cold and flu, gastrointestinal problems, stress, or premenstrual syndrome.
The results, published in next month’s Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine, show:
- 22 (18%) of the products are not registered with the Australian Register of Therapeutic Goods, despite this being a legal requirement of their sale
- 59 (60%) of the registered products have different ingredient concentrations listed on their websites compared with the Therapeutic Goods listings, making them non-compliant for sale
- Some of the remedies have substituted one ingredient for another
The researchers also purchased sample items of 15 of these products over the counter at health food stores and pharmacies, and discovered only two of them had ingredient concentrations consistent between the packaging, the information on their website, and their official Therapeutic Goods listing.
“More than two thirds of the 121 products we surveyed were in some way not compliant for sale. That is a major concern for the community as well as for health professionals, with confusion about what is really contained in herbal medicines,” Dr Musgrave says.
“Our survey reinforces that there is a lack of quality information about herbal remedies. This disparity of information is a concern, as purchasers may be exposed to potentially hazardous concentrations of materials, or be at higher risk of overdose.”
Professor Roger Byard AO, co-author and University of Adelaide forensic pathologist, claims implications also exist for pathologists such as himself when trying to determine the cause of an individual’s death.
“Because of the lack of good quality information, it may not be possible to determine what herbal substance a person has been exposed to prior to death and in what concentration. This could further exacerbate the problem of determining what role herbal medicines may play in certain forensic cases,” Professor Byard says.
