How safe are Herbal Medicines in India
We generally believe that herbal is synonymous to "safe". The commonest myth regarding herbal medicines is that these medicines are completely safe, and can therefore be safely consumed by the patient on his/her own, without a physician's advice, but the actual fact is that herbal remedies can be deadly. Spurious or counterfeit herbal medicines can be fatal, claiming lives without getting diagnosis of the caused adverse drug reaction.
In India, Herbal remedies are well known from folklore traditional medicine times. They are obtained from plant leaves, bark, berries, flowers, and roots and have been used to heal illnesses, diseases, and psychological disorders for centuries. Herbal formulations are being widely accepted as therapeutic agents for antidiabetics, antiarthritics, hepatoprotectives, cough remedies, memory enhancers, and adaptogens. And with the ease of internet access nowadays, one can self-diagnose, order next day delivery, and even learn how to make their own herbal medicine kits. This has increased disappointing end-results, side-effects, or unwanted after-effects.
Many herbal drugs manufacturers lack regulation, proper raw material standardization and scientific validation of their final products. But due to lack of control of their unregulated market, such medicines are easily becoming available online and are also being advertised through various sources to grab the attention of consumers.
We Indians as individuals have great faith on nutritional supplements and without discrimating age they are consumed on a daily basis in belief of getting more health benefits than everyday food consumption. Factors such as growing trend of consumer acceptance of herbal products for healthcare, beauty care and diet supplementation, globally, focus of researchers and pharmaceutical industries in the herbal sector for economical reasons, and more and more countries are according legal status to herbal products and permitting legalized trade of these products in their countries thus indicating rapid growth opportunity for herbal products and also making such products popular amongst common people.
On 9th November, 2014, first time the Department of AYUSH has been re-formed as a separate Ministry; known as Ministry of AYUSH. The Ministry of AYUSH promotes and propagates Indian systems of Medicine and Homoeopathy, and is committed to infuse the wisdom of traditional medicine with the methodologies of modern science, scientifically validating the systems and presenting them in the scientific idiom, relating their efficacy to modern life styles.
With rapid infrastructure, manpower, human resources development of AYUSH, it can be hoped that there shall be increasing awareness at several levels of the need to develop pharmacovigilance practices for herbal medicines. The current model of pharmacovigilance and its associated tools have been developed in relation to synthetic drugs, and applying these methods to monitoring the safety of herbal medicines presents unique challenges. The purpose of pharmacovigilance is to detect, assess, and understand, and to prevent the adverse effects or any other possible drug-related problems, related to herbal, traditional, and complementary medicines. Several problems relate to the ways in which herbal medicines are named, perceived, sourced, and utilized.
There are several ways in which we can move forward in attempting to provoke pharmacovigilance in herbals. Like making the reporting of adverse reactions to regulatories mandatory for herbal formulations and the safety and quality of herbal medicine ensured through greater research, greater regulatory control, and better communication between patients and health professionals. Also the creation of a National Herbal Pharmacovigilance system and adverse drug reporting services of herbal medicines can provide much benefit to patients. Pharmacovigilance in herbal medicine in India is perhaps an unthought of concept and awakening the total monitoring system of herbal medicines in India with active pharmacovigilance is probably the need of the hour.
Till then, we at PSM-India opine that it is very important that people do not self-diagnose any health condition. Every medication (herbal or otherwise) should be taken under the supervision of a knowledgeable medical practitioner. Herbs can act on the body as powerfully as synthetic drugs and should be treated with the same care and respect.