As I See It
How safe are herbal supplements?
By Neal Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:17:00 11/10/2008
Filed Under: Government, Medicines, Health
MANILA, Philippines - The cheaper medicines act is supposed to be in effect already so prices of medicines should drop drastically, giving relief to millions of sick people who have to give up an arm to be able to buy the medicines they need. With that out of the way and the Bureau of Food and Drugs finished with testing Chinese products for traces of the chemical melamine, shouldn’t BFAD and the Department of Health turn their attention to the proliferation of herbal drugs being passed off as “food supplements”?
Look at the newspapers and magazines, television shows and the billboards: they are full of advertisements and commercials of these herbals making so many claims. Celebrities make fantastic claims about the herbals they are endorsing. Considering the talent fees of these celebrities, the frequency of the ads and commercials and the sizes of the billboards, the manufacturers of these herbals must be raking it in. Indeed, there are estimates that the “food supplement” industry is a multibillion-peso industry.
The public must be buying these herbals in droves. They must have been convinced by the claims in the ads and commercials.
But how true are these claims? Is the public being taken for a ride? Are these herbals good or bad for the health of humans? Alas, we don’t know. No scientific studies, either by BFAD or the manufacturer, have been publicized. BFAD claims these herbals are not under its jurisdiction because they are not medicine but “food supplements.” That is only one loophole. Another loophole is the disclaimer: “No therapeutic claims,” it says on the box. Yet that is exactly what the manufacturers are claiming in the ads and commercials. Like snake oil, these herbals claim to cure or prevent almost every disease known to man: arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, atherosclerosis, cancer, circulatory, digestive and pulmonary diseases, etc. One commercial shows an old man who cannot walk crying in pain because of arthritis. After taking the herbal supplement, he is shown jogging happily. Isn’t that a therapeutic claim?
Also, many of these herbals are being marketed like medicine, in capsule, pill or tablet form. The makers of even the herbal teas make fantastic claims about their products.
Many Filipinos readily take to herbals because we have a tradition of using herbs to cure various diseases. In the rural areas where there are few “boticas” and medicines are expensive, the people go to “herbolarios” who prescribe various leaves, barks, roots, fruits, flowers and stems. Indeed, some who are seriously sick would rather take the herbs rather than the medicines prescribed by doctors.
I had a sister-in-law who was diagnosed with cancer. Doctors prescribed a regimen of chemotherapy. But then a friend told her stories of people cured by herbs.
So she decided to try the herbal therapy. Several days after taking the herbal teas she said she was feeling much better. But then she died soon after.
We have heard of herbals that used to be “miracle cures” of this or that disease. The fads didn’t last long, however. Now these miracle cures are no more.
There was, for example, the mahogany seeds that supposedly lowered blood pressure. The mahogany seed was the rage only about a decade ago. A fellow journalist, of all people, started chewing the seeds because he heard of the stories about it. He should have investigated first like a true journalist. But he did not and now he is six feet under. The mahogany seeds, it turned out, are toxic to humans. Chewing them was soon prohibited. But it was too late for my friend.
It is the same thing with other herbals. According to doctors, some plants really have medicinal value. Indeed, many medicines are taken from plants. But separating the medicinal ingredients from other parts of the plant is one thing; taking the whole plant or its leaves as a tea is another.
A plant or a leaf has many chemical properties. The medicinal property may be only one, but there may be many others that could be harmful, say the doctors. Herbals should be taken with caution because we don’t know the harmful ingredients they contain. Studies must first be made before a certain plant is prescribed as medicine.
Ironically, it was the DOH that propagated the use of herbals. A previous secretary of health who used to practice medicine in the countryside, realizing that the cost of medicines was beyond the reach of many poor patients, encouraged the use of herbals. That started the boom in the herbal industry. Every week a new herbal comes out making fantastic claims. As fast as the manufacturers can think of a new name to connect to a deadly disease (Circulan, Arthro, Diabetrol, etc.), they come out with a new herbal.
But BFAD should have studied these herbals first before they are sold to protect the public, not only from false claims but also from the possible harmful effects of these products. Yet BFAD washes its hands by claiming that they are not medicines but “food supplement.”
It may be all right to let the rural folk continue with their folk medicine, but it is not all right to allow businessmen to make claims about their products which are not true. That is fooling the public; the public should be protected from them.
What about the doctors and other celebrities who endorse certain herbals? If somebody dies or gets seriously sick after taking the herbals they endorsed, shouldn’t they be made responsible? I say we should pass a law that would make it a crime to make false claims about medicines or herbal supplements.
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