© 2004 Fellowship of Postgraduate Medicine
EDITORIAL
Phytopharmacovigilance
Challenges for phytopharmacovigilance
Correspondence to:
Correspondence to:
Dr E Ernst
Complementary Medicine, Peninsula Medical School, Universities of Exeter and Plymouth, 25 Victoria Park Road, Exeter EX2 4NT, UK; Edzard.Ernst@pms.ac.uk
It is important that the safety of herbal medicines is scientifically addressed
Keywords: herbal medicine; phytopharmacovigilance
| The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below. |
Throughout history, plants have been used for medicinal purposes and, during the last three decades, we have witnessed a most remarkable revival of herbal medicine.1 Germany is the country with the largest per head consumption of herbal medicines. In 2002, the 100 best selling products achieved a total turnover of 420 million Euros.2 This high level of popularity means, among other things, that we ought to ensure that no harm is done. Even though the media frequently try to persuade us otherwise, not all herbal medicines are free of adverse effects (table 1
).2–5 Phytopharmacovigilance—that is, the systematic research of the safety of herbal medicines—has therefore become an important topic. In this article, I will briefly outline some of the challenges encountered in this area.
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View this table: [in a new window] Table 1 Examples of popular herbal medicines* and associated risks |
Herbal medicines are usually not patentable. Therefore, keen commercial impetus for systematic research rarely exists. Consequently
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This article has been cited by other articles:
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Ernst, E
(2008). Frankincense: systematic review. BMJ
337: a2813-a2813
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