New law for ayurvedic herbal manufacturers in India

FROM UPALI Rupasinghe in New Delhi

FROM January 1,2006, every licensed manufacturer of Ayurvedic herbal products in India has to declare 'heavy metals within permissible limits' before export or sending them for sale.

In December 2004, The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) published an article that said that 14 out of the 70 Ayurvedic products tested were found to contain heavy metals-lead, mercury and or arsenic-above acceptable levels. Based on their own testing, Health Canada, the Canadian govenment's health department, warned consumers against using some of these Ayurvedic products.

The Consumer Education and Research society (CERS) in India brought the article to the notice of the authorities.

The JAMA article said that as per the US Pharmacopea, the maximum allowable lead content was 4.5 microgram a day for adults and 1 microgram for a 10kg child.

For arsenic and mercury, it quoted the reference doses established by the US Environmental Protection Agency. These are 21 microgram for both metals a day for a 70kg adult and 3 microgram for a 10 kg child.

According to researchers, Ayurvedic drugs contain herbs, minerals and metals. They estimate that 35 to 40 per cent of about 6,000 medicines in the Ayurvedic formulary internationally contain at least one metal.

In some cases, heavy metals get into the medicines either through the raw material or the method of preparation.

Heavy metals are used in the preparation of Ayurvedic drugs. But since they contain potentially harmful ingredients, they are expected to be prepared by manufacturers keeping in view the detailed detoxification procedure.