The College of Medicine on Changes to Herbal Medicine
From April 30th, new laws will affect the availability of herbal medicines and how they can be labelled and sold. This is the end of a very long implementation process of a new EU law on herbal medicines. Under this law, unless granted a full market authorisation (i.e. full medicines licence), all herbal medicines sold over the counter will now need a traditional herbal registration (THR) to stay on the market. Herbs that are traditionally sold as teas will remain on sale under food law.
One effect for consumers will be an increase in safety of the herbal medicines available. There have been a few cases where members of the public have been poisoned by herbal medicines that have been mislabelled, misidentified, or adulterated (e.g. with conventional drugs or heavy metals). Although herbal preparations have been overwhelmingly safe for most people, the MHRA (Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency) wants to prevent a repeat of these accidents.
The quality of herbs will become more reliable under the new scheme: previously some herbal preparations have been found to be illegally irradiated or lacking quality e.g. ginseng sold that contains little or none of its active principles. It should also prevent one herb being labelled as another - for instance chamomile sold as feverfew.
More on the college's view, including the statutory regulation of herbalists can be found at The College of Medicine website.