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SCMP Reporter

CHINESE herbal teas are to be tested for poisonous metals after US findings of huge amounts of arsenic and mercury in nine mainland varieties.

  The teas were 'a potentially serious health risk', the US Fish and Wildlife Service said.

  It reported that one brand contained seven times the level of arsenic and five times the amount of mercury that has led to chronic poisoning elsewhere.

  If the US findings were repeated in Hong Kong samples, six of the brands would be considered dangerous and removed from sale, a Department of Health spokesman said.

  The department's pharmaceutical service will buy samples and send them to the Government Laboratory for analysis.

  'We have not tested these brands before,' the spokesman said. 'If they exceed the allowed level, we can demand that they be removed from the shelves.'    The US findings followed confiscation of tea balls claimed to contain banned rhino horn and tiger bone.

  The balls are usually mixtures of herbs and honey that are dissolved in warm wine or water and drunk for illnesses such as fever, rheumatism and cataracts.

  Chemical analysis revealed no animal content but high levels of the two metals, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.

  Although there were no documented toxic thresholds of the metals in these forms, 'chronic arsenic sulphide poisoning from the consumption of traditional Asian medicinal agents in Singapore has been reported in patients ingesting approximately 10 milligrams per day,' the report said.

  Similarly chronic mercury poisoning had been found among patients taking about 260 mg a day in Britain.

  Chronic arsenic or mercury poisoning - the effects of repeated small doses - can lead to weakness, diarrhoea, skin peeling, some paralysis and effects on the nervous system, anaemia, stomach ulcers and kidney disease.

   'Therefore most of the herbal-ball preparations that we examined pose a potentially serious health risk to consumers,' the report said. 'Health care professionals should be aware that patients who consume traditional Chinese remedies may be exposed to many potentially toxic substances.'   Senior Government Laboratory chemist Dr Leung Chung-pui said that of 491 samples bought randomly from shops for testing last year, 15 were found to contain Western controlled drugs such as steroids, and seven had high levels of arsenic, mercury or lead in a soluble form.

  'Some may be contaminants if quality control is not good enough during processing,' he said.

  But the metals could also be present naturally in a form that did not dissolve, posing no danger. Many herbs in their raw form had 'some kind of toxicity' which would be neutralised during preparation, he said.



Herbal teas to be tested after arsenic found