Traditional medicines regime needs urgent fix
Modern medicine has long posed a challenge to traditional health remedies. The Hong Kong colonial authorities only tolerated Chinese medicine, and did not give it the recognition it deserved until the final years of their rule. Soon after the handover, the Tung Chee-hwa administration outlined a plan to make the city a hub for the development of traditional medicine. University degree enrolments have since grown and outpatient clinics have sprung up.
Key to its development, however, was a law passed 11 years ago to regulate proprietary Chinese medicines. Visionary plans mean nothing unless consumers can be assured of the safety of products and their quality. Ingredients, shelf life and manufacturing methods must pass minimum standards, and their efficacy - that they are effective in treating specified conditions - assured. Regrettably, the law has yet to come into effect. And when it does on December 1, more than 80 per cent of the 11,260 products so far granted temporary registration as safe will still lack the proof of quality and efficacy required for full registration. It should not have taken 11 years to get a safety regime in place, enforceable with fines of up to HK$100,000 and jail terms of up to two years for the sale, import or possession of unregistered Chinese medicine. The regime is based on three separate tests for heavy metals and toxicity, pesticide residue and microbial limit.
But lawmakers and pharmacists also have a point in criticising the government for compromising public safety by allowing medicines that remain unproven onto the market. In this respect, Society of Hospital Pharmacists vice-president William Chui Chun-ming makes sense. Quality and efficacy are also ultimately about safety. If traditional medicines do not measure up to claims for their contents or effectiveness, using them may result in a delay in seeking conventional treatment, with serious consequences.
While it might be reasonable for health officials to cut some slack for a trade with a long and complex history, traders who fail to pass all three tests for full registration of their products within a year or two should face a ban on them. A senior health official says the Chinese Medicines Registration Board must allow traders reasonable time to provide test reports so that the process is 'just'. It must also strive for some balance so that it is fair to consumers, too.
That said, it is not easy to assess the efficacy and quality of Chinese medicines in the same way technicians look for scientifically proven compounds in western medicines. Chan King-ming of Chinese University's school of life sciences likens Chinese herbs to wine in that quality, or the level of active ingredients, depends on soil and growing environment, which can vary from place to place from time to time. Chemical analysis that reflected this would be a costly exercise. It conjures up alarming visions of the emergence of a market in which consumers pay a high premium for medicines made from herbs grown in 'good years' in certain regions.
It may be argued that there is no problem with products that have been sold here for many years. But the discovery of cancer-causing chemicals in Po Chai Pills recently is a reminder that we cannot afford complacency. We could be more confident that every batch of medicine will be safe and more or less the same if the Department of Health had not dragged its feet for so long. Now that regulation is soon to take effect, the government needs to show a greater sense of urgency about verifying the quality and effectiveness of traditional medicines and provide more resources to handle the workload.
