CHINESE HERBAL CARCINOGEN SOLD ON INTERNET

Two years ago the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) banned the importation of Chinese herbal products containing aristolochic acid since they were found to cause rapid kidney failure and cancer of the urinary tract. The product had been used as a diet supplement and, although banned in the US, is still readily available on the Internet. According to University of California, Berkeley, researcher Lois Swirsky Gold, FDA Regulations on the Internet sale of herbal products is needed.

"Aristolochia and aristolochic acid are known human and rat carcinogens," Gold said in an interview. "What is also disturbing is that the recommended dose for at least one product on the Internet is the same as the dose that gave cancer to rats. These products should not be available."

Gold notified the FDA earlier this year when she found over 100 herbal products for sale on the Internet that are known or are suspected to contain aristolochic acid. Since substitution frequently occurs in Chinese medicine, buyers can't be certain what a product contains.

In her letter to the FDA, which was co-authored by Thomas H. Slone, it was stated that:

. . . herbal medications containing Aristolochia species were banned in Germany 20 years ago, and they currently also are banned in Japan, Malaysia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom. In Australia, products known to contain aristolochic acid were canceled, "and all manufacturers are required to ensure that herbs which are likely to be used interchangeably with Aristolochia are free from AA (aristolochic acid)," she wrote.

Some names of the products (including the names of the retailers) known to contain the carcinogen are as follows:

Cold Away - Sunrise Herb Farm
Cramp Relief - Sunrise Herbal Remedies
Formula 208 - Web Vitamins
Mother Earth's Cough Syrup - InterNatural
PMS-Ease - InnerLife Wellness Center
Wild Ginger Tincture - Crucible Catalog
Aller Relief - Spanda

Note that this listing is only a small number of the products that contain the aristolochic acid. For a complete listing, go here. Documentation of the Gold and Slone findings appears in the current issue of The New England Journal of Medicine (subscription required).

My only comment on this subject is that I've known many folks that swear by the herbal supplements to their diets. They many times are the trail mix, back-to-nature crowd who are trusting of all things natural. Based upon the foregoing, that attitude may need to be reassessed.