Herbal medicine: There are no safety checks
Thursday 24th June 2010, 2:59PM BST.
From Dr Susan Turnbull, Deputy Medical Officer of Health.
A NUMBER of issues raised by Hedi Green (JEP, 11 Jun – Prescription drugs also carry risks) are in need of clarification.
The action taken by Police colleagues earlier this year was in response to a complaint from a customer that a product bought in the Dr Beijing shop listed, as one of its ingredients, the banned substance aristolochia.
This herbal substance was banned in 2002 because of its toxic properties – it causes kidney failure, and cancer of the kidneys. It was important to act quickly to remove any remaining product from sale, as well as to take steps to establish who else may have bought it so they could be contacted to advise against taking any more of it.
The reasons I accompanied police colleagues visiting the shop were twofold: firstly, to seek the co-operation of the Chinese practitioner in voluntarily assisting the police in the interests of public health (and thus avoid the need for arrest); and, with his further cooperation, to have confidential access to client records to establish who needed to be notified of possible risk.
Analysis of the offending product by the UK authorities was a protracted process, linked to a nationwide health alert and investigation of the supplier and other retail outlets. It showed, thankfully, that the amounts present were very low, and harm to health caused by aristolochia unlikely in people who had taken it.
It is not correct, however, to say, as does the title of the article (JEP, 1 Jun), ‘Tests show seized herbal pills posed no risk’. Quite apart from the analysis results with regard to aristolochia, there is no way of knowing whether a herbal product is safe or not. No-one could ever say they pose no risk. That is because herbal medicines are not subject to any safety checks, as are conventional medicines.
Turning to Hedi Green’s comment about adverse reactions to prescription drugs. It is absolutely right to say that all medicines have potential ill effects. This includes herbal medicines.
But there is a big difference. Conventional medicines have to pass rigorous clinical trials and safety checks as part of the legally required licensing process. All potential side effects must be clearly documented for doctors’ and patients’ information, as well as the potential of the medicine/drug to interact with others. Information must also be provided about any cautions or contra-indications (when it should not be used, or used only with caution and careful monitoring).
Each time a doctor reaches a balanced decision to recommend a medicine and prescribe it, he or she is doing so in the knowledge of the potential benefit to each patient, as well as any potential harms which should be discussed.
Doctors, in order to be licensed by the General Medical Council to practise medicine, need to have up to date professional indemnity. In the event of any successful legal claim in negligence, for instance, the organisation providing indemnity pays damages on the doctor’s behalf.
Neither herbal products, nor herbal practitioners come with any such assurances. The quality, safety, and possible side effects of these products are entirely unknown, apart from the few known poisons, such as aristolochia. Neither herbal medicines, nor herbal practitioners are subject to any regulation. It is simply a case of ‘buyer beware’.
Which makes it all the more important for authorities to act quickly to protect public health, if there is evidence indicating that a poisonous substance is on sale in our town centre. Imagine the criticism if no action had been taken, especially once the product recall was in the national news.
Formerly, legal highs were marketed on the basis that if something is natural, herbal, and not actually illegal then that should somehow make it safe. Not so, as growing evidence indicates. Remember, some of the most potent poisons known to man – strychnine, belladonna, aconite, hemlock – are herbal.
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No surprises that Dr Turnbull gave such a sensible response. I was also somewhat perturbed by that letter. The medical benefits of many herbal products have been thoroughly and scientifically disproven, not that this will make any difference to those that use them. Some that have been shown to work also have dangerous side effects (St John’s Wort being one of the best known), but these problems cannot be monitored due to a lack of regulation around this area of ‘medicine’. Those alternative medicines that are found to work do tend to eventually be found within traditional medicine being prescribed by GPs.
Prescription drugs get to the stage of being prescribed only after years of thorough testing. Of course some have risks, and when being prescribed those risks are weighed up against the benefits by someone fully trained to make such a call.
I take two medications that have fairly large risks associated with them, however, it is a fact that I would be dead without either of them. I will not touch herbal medicine without scientific proof that it works and that it will not react badly with my prescribed medication.
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One word. Thalidomide.
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Dr.Susan Turnbull describes her unjustified raid with “Police colleagues” on a “Chinese practitioner” as a valid reason to avoid “his arrest”.Analysis of the “offending product” came to nothing. I would hope that at the very least, the States will examine racism within our imported “nanny knows best” UK health civil servants and the cost to this island of employing them.
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“The action taken by Police colleagues earlier this year was in response to a complaint from a customer that a product bought in the Dr Beijing shop listed, as one of its ingredients, the banned substance aristolochia.”
Of course. Just what I would do – buy something from a herbal medecine shop, check the ingredients list against my handy pharmacopoeia at home, and go and complain to the Police. The boys in blue, with their well-known extensive knowledge of herbal medecine and banned ingredients, then decided to carry out a raid on the shop, and happened to ask Dr Turnbull along, “in order to avoid the need for arrest”. If only we were all so knowledgeable, and so public-spirited.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a cracking example of how to claim credit for an action, while simultaneously denying all responsibility for it.
I feel quite ungrateful that I don’t trust the big pharmaceutical companies, the medical ‘authority figures’, or the government, more than I do.
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I am glad that herbal medicine doesnt have to be regulated by the – ‘is it innefective and poisonous then lets sell it?’ regulations of ‘conventional medicine’.
Go and research the FDA and pharmaceutical corruption – Wake up – Real medicine comes from nature . Pharmaceutical ‘Medicine’ is a BIG SCAM.
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Martin, you can’t be falling for that one.
Yes there are issues with pharmaceutical companies (although you are possibly being swayed by how big an issue it is in the US, the UK is not the same) but you are entirely wrong to suggest that the only medicines that get prescribed are ineffective and useless. I don’t doubt they are useless on people who have nothing really wrong with them but want meds for a sniffle or because they’ve had a bad month, but many, many medications are extremely effective! I have yet to have a medication prescribed to me that has not had a significant effect on my condition (2 keep me alive), but then I only take medication if my condition cannot be solved any other way, I’m not one of those who just wants someone else to fix it for them with a tablet.
And yes, medical professionals know that conventional medicine comes from nature (it is usually the public that don’t understand this), where else could it come from? That doesn’t change the fact that processes are used to isolate the effective parts and remove the useless/detrimental parts, or that various natural elements are combined because they only have an effect when combined.
The great physicians of the past and present did not put themselves at risk to promote medicines that have no effect!
Always best to think before suggesting that conventional medicine is just bogus, lest someone listens to you and dies because of it!
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Employing an imported CMO and deputy CMO to simply peddle and pass on UK ” nanny knows best” directives is a total waste of resources.Geller should apologise for the swine flu debacle, which cost taxpayers millions and was not sanctioned by the States before she decided to commit.Turnbull should also apologise and offer compensation for defamation and loss of business to the doctor, whose premises were raided by her self styled “police colleagues”.Yet neither of them are in any way contrite, despite being in the top league of highly paid civil servants and both seem to think they are immune to censure.
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I would add that I have never taken herbal medicine and have not had any contact with the doctor concerned.
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The silence of Dr.Susan Turnbull is deafening. Perhaps we should assume that an online reply would not be in her best interests or those of her colleague, Dr. Rosemary Geller? They have failed and continue to fail in reaching the public at large.Forwarding directives from the UK mandarins at the MCA in Colindale, North London, does not justify the high expense of their employment, when cuts are needed in public services in Jersey.
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Dear Leah .
The greater portion of pharmaceutical products are innefective in terms of curative capacity .Certainly the placebo effect will help to heal anyone of anything to an extent and given that pharmaceutical substances most often cause a feeling that also very often allays the symptoms, they can therefore be imagined to be effective in a curative manner when they in themselves may be doing nothing to promote a greater level of health or to heal or cure at all.
Many common pharmaceutical substances are unquestionably toxic and very often chemical treatment does not resolve the causes of disease – whereas traditional medicinal systems from all over the planet will often work at removing the underlying cause of the problem thus (if effective) being actually effective in the curative sense .
A ‘copy’ of a ‘single chemical’ from nature is first of all not the same thing as the original, although upon simple chemical analysis they have the same signature – they are however NOT the same .
Then of course assuming that every element that is responsible for the health giving effect has been identified is highly arrogant and has been shown also in many instances not to be the case .
You said:
“The great physicians of the past and present did not put themselves at risk to promote medicines that have no effect!”
The term ‘The great physicians’ is an ALL encompassing statement because you used the word ‘THE’ and you have therefore stated via inference that included in the number all of great physicians are NONE that promote/promoted that which I personally herald as true medicine (the products of nature) BECAUSE you are speaking of course in reference to my post and ergo my point about chemicals versus nature. This I feel was a most foolish move as many GREAT physicians have of course AND ‘do currently’ point toward the very same answer that I do when asked where medicine should be attained from .
I wish you peace.
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Martin, an interesting if somewhat bizarre post. I feel you are overstating the placebo effect, especially if, as you claim, “the greater portion” are ineffective. But then I guess the placebo effect can only be applied to ‘conventional’ medicine, not herbal medicine? I have seen the placebo effect many times with herbal medicine, I have only encountered a handful of herbal remedies that genuinely worked and some of those were toxic. Toxicity is not just a concern with conventional medicine after all, even if patients do tend to believe ‘natural’ automatically means safe! I think it’s great that there are a handful that do work but I still believe they should be regulated because of the dangers they can pose.
You also have to be careful that it is not just your observation that certain drugs only have a placebo effect. The two drugs I’m on have no visible way of displaying that they are working and I’m sure some of my friends and family wonder if I even need them, yet my medical team and I know that I wouldn’t be alive without both of them. Patients can be very adept at keeping their visible symptoms hidden from those they see in everyday life, and not all will even have visible symptoms.
I have not denied that some medicines are ineffective but I think to say it is the greater portion suggests that you are not actually aware of what medicines are in use today. As I pointed out some medicines make it from the local herbal remedy shop into the list of drugs that can be prescribed by doctors, do these drugs suddenly stop working the minute they are available on prescription? Maybe they did not work in the first place?
There are both drugs and medical procedures that require drugs keeping people alive every single day.
We could, of course, get rid of the pharmaceuticals that do not work but the public do not want that so it is unlikely to happen. The public would rather have a tablet and feel better than improve their own health through better eating, better quality sleep and exercise. If you want a reason why there are still some drugs on the market that are ineffective then look to the patient. Do not, however, disregard the great number of drugs that make a huge (and scientifically measurable) improvement to patients’ health, even if they do have difficult side effects.
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Sorry Martin, I missed your mention of ‘curative capacity’. I wasn’t aware that only drugs that cure should be allowed, and that we should deny people drugs that prevent them experiencing very troublesome and difficult symptoms!
If you were under the assumption that all drugs are meant to cure then of course you are going to find them ‘ineffective’. Most drugs do not even claim to cure!
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Drs Turnbull and Geller,the lack of response from you both further adds to the weight of public opinion that you are both incapable of anything other than passing on PR directives from the UK MCA.
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Or are you awaiting a directive from the UK before you reply?
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