Recent claims by a South Australian academic that a large percentage of herbal medicines in Australia may be missing important ingredients or are contaminated are based on distorted statistics and overseas research which is not generalisable.
Writing in The Conversation this week,Ian Musgrave PhD, senior lecturer in Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide, draws on Canadian research on DNA barcoding that examined 44 herbal products on sale in North America, sourced from Canada and the US, and found one in ten had no herbs in them.
He then suggests that it follows that Australia has a significant problem with adulteration.
×
To continue reading this article, please
Log In or
Sign Up for access.