fact that herbs are exempt from the government regulations imposed on the phar-
maceutical industry.
Herbs are plants or parts of plants that have a proven therapeutic effect. These
were the “original” medicines. Even today, physicians in Germany and other
countries prescribe herbs as the first choice when combating certain diseases.
However, herbs are not typically prescribed in the United States for a number
of reasons. Few pharmacy schools offer courses in botanical remedies and some
nursing pharmaceutical courses focus more on misuse of herbal therapies than
their proper use. Probably the most leading reason that herbs are not prescribed
is that health insurance in the United States does not pay for these therapies.
Herbal therapies cannot be patented, which is a likely reason why the phar-
maceutical industry hasn’t pushed the government and the medical community
to use herbal therapies as treatment for diseases and symptoms of diseases.
The Food and Drug Administration is not required to approve herbal thera-
pies. This creates an open and unregulated market for herbal therapies that lacks
quality standards found in the pharmaceutical industry.
In 1992, Congress instructed the National Institutes of Health to develop an
Office of Alternative Medicine to support research studies of alternative thera-
pies—including herbals.
Interestingly, herbs are the raw material of old and new pharmaceutical med-
ication. For example, the herb foxglove is the source for digitalis and the herb
salicin is the source for aspirin. The breast-cancer-fighting drug Taxol comes
from the pacific yew tree.
Although the therapeutic effect of herbs have been well known for thou-
sands of years, there seems to be a lack of uniform information about them that
describes their use, dosage, side effects, and contraindications. This is informa-
tion that is available for all prescription and OTC pharmaceutical medications.
In addition, there aren’t any qualitative monographs that provide guidelines
for compounding and standards of purity for herbal medication. That is, there
isn’t a well-defined measurement for purity and manufacturing of herbal med-
ication as there is for prescription and OTC pharmaceutical medications.
An effort has been launched by the United States Pharmacopeia (USP), the
World Health Organization (WHO), American Herbal Phamarcopeia (AHP), and
others to develop herbal therapeutic monographs that provide this information
for herbal therapies.
One in five people in the United States who have taken prescription medication
also have taken herbal medications. And while herbal preparations can be thera-
peutic, the lack of quality standards and contraindication with prescribed and OTC
medication exposes patients to potential toxicity and other adverse side effects.(^126) CHAPTER 8 Herbal Therapy