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  • From: "Tradingpost" <tradingpost@lobo.net>
  • To: livingontheland@lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [Livingontheland] Europe to ban hundreds of herbal remedies
  • Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 16:06:51 -0700


Europe to ban hundreds of herbal remedies
Safety concerns sparked drive to outlaw products
By Jeremy Laurance, Health Editor Thursday, 30 December 2010

Hundreds of herbal medicinal products will be banned from sale in Britain
next year under what campaigners say is a "discriminatory and
disproportionate" European law. With four months to go before the EU-wide ban
is implemented, thousands of patients face the loss of herbal remedies that
have been used in the UK for decades.

From 1 May 2011, traditional herbal medicinal products must be licensed or
prescribed by a registered herbal practitioner to comply with an EU directive
passed in 2004. The directive was introduced in response to rising concern
over adverse effects caused by herbal medicines.

The UK Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has
issued more than a dozen safety alerts in the past two years, including one
over aristolochia, a banned toxic plant derivative which caused kidney
failure in two women.

Herbal practitioners say it is impossible for most herbal medicines to
meet the licensing requirements for safety and quality, which are intended to
be similar to those for pharmaceutical drugs, because of the cost of testing.
According to the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), which represents herbal
practitioners, not a single product used in traditional Chinese medicine or
ayurvedic medicine has been licensed. In Europe, around 200 products from 27
plant species have been licensed but there are 300 plant species in use in
the UK alone.

The ANH estimates the cost of obtaining a licence at between £80,000 and
£120,000 per herb. They say this is affordable for single herbal products
with big markets, such as echinacea, a remedy for colds and flu, but will
drive small producers of medicines containing multiple herbs out of business.
Under EU law, statutorily regulated herbal practitioners will be permitted to
continue prescribing unlicensed products. But the Coalition Government and
the previous Labour administration have delayed plans to introduce a
statutory herbal practitioner register.






  • [Livingontheland] Europe to ban hundreds of herbal remedies, Tradingpost, 12/30/2010

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