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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

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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