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Information sheets on safe use of herbs

This section provides safety information about individual herbal ingredients.

The MHRA’s aim is to protect public health.  To help achieve this we wish to ensure that consumers and healthcare practitioners have reliable and readily accessible information about the safe use of herbal medicines. 

Herbal medicines assessed by the MHRA have a PL (Product Licence) or THR  (Traditional Herbal Registration) number on the label.  These products are accompanied by clear, comprehensive information about the safe use of the product.  However, the information provided with unlicensed herbal medicines  is not assessed by the MHRA and in many cases may be incomplete or unreliable. 

To help consumers the MHRA is preparing information sheets on the safe use of herbs.  The information is taken from our assessment work and is based on  the Summary of Product Characteristics (SPC) of herbal medicines that the MHRA has registered since October 2005).

The number of information sheets available will grow as more products are registered under the new THR scheme.

How to use the information sheets
You may want to use the sheet to:

  • Check what warnings or “dos and don’ts” might apply when using a particular herb.
  • Decide whether there are any questions you need to ask your herbal practitioner, pharmacist or doctor before using a product.
  • Check whether an unlicensed product has comprehensive information about safe use.  This may help you to decide whether to avoid use of the product.  If the product information is poor this could also be a sign of other possible problems, such as low manufacturing standards.

Remember

  • The strength, dosage and usage of different unlicensed herbal products may vary widely.
  • This means the information sheet cannot provide full information about any particular unlicensed product.
  • Do not assume that an unlicensed herbal product with fewer warnings on its label or leaflet is safer.

Want further details about regulated products?
To find out more about herbal products that have been registered since 30 October 2005 see our Public Assessment Reports for herbal medicines section.

General advice to consumers
Please follow our advice to consumers on using herbal medicines.

The information sheets


Page last modified: 27 February 2008