Herbal scare overblown
May 5, 2010
THE Australian Self-Medication
Industry has once again responded
to a recent article published in the
Sydney Daily Telegraph which
suggested herbal remedies “pose a
serious threat to consumer health”
by saying the threat was overblown
and ill founded.
According to ASMI, the report
quoted a paper by Professor Roger
Byard of the University of Adelaide
who based his research on studies
of herbal products in the US where
herbal and complementary
medicines are unregulated.
ASMI argues that this research is
not indicative of the situation in
Australia where both herbal and
complementary products are
subject to strict quality control
processes, meaning many of the
products sold in the US are in fact
not available in Australia.
“Australia has one of the most
comprehensive regulatory
arrangements in the world for
complementary medicines,” said
ASMI regulatory and technical
manager for Complementary
Medicines, Ruth Kendon.
“The Therapeutic Goods
Administration is the body responsible
for overseeing this regime and it
has an outstanding reputation for
ensuring quality and safety including
quality materials,” she added.
Kendon also said that a portion
of the adverse reactions to the
items in the article related to cases
where extremely high doses of the
medicines were administered, and
that the majority of evidence give
for medication interaction was
purely theoretical, had no evidential
basis and for the most part had
been subsequently disproven.
In particular, in the case of Black
Cohosh, which featured in the
report, the TGA mandated label
warnings several years ago to alert
consumers to the possibility of a
“very rare risk of liver damage”.
ASMI urged consumers to consult
the advice of health professionals
when considering a new treatment.
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