Wal P, Wal A, Gupta S, Sharma G, Rai Ak
Department of Pharmacognosy, Pranveer Singh Institute of Technology, Kanpur, Uttar Pradesh, India.
J Young Pharm. 2011 Jul;3(3):256-8. doi: 10.4103/0975-1483.83780.
Herbal formulations being widely accepted therapeutic agents as antidiabetics, antiarthritics, hepatoprotectives, cough remedies, memory enhancers, and adaptogens. The commonest myth regarding herbal medicines is that these medicines are completely safe, and can therefore be safely consumed by the patient on his/her own, without a physician's prescription. This belief has led to large-scale self-medication by people all over the world, often leading to disappointing end-results, side-effects, or unwanted after-effects. There is an increasing awareness at several levels of the need to develop pharmacovigilance practices for herbal medicines. The current model of pharmacovigilance and its associated tools have been developed in relation to synthetic drugs, and applying these methods to monitoring the safety of herbal medicines presents unique challenges in addition to those described for conventional medicines. Several problems relate to the ways in which herbal medicines are named, perceived, sourced, and utilized. This may be because of differences in the use of nonorthodox drugs (e.g., herbal remedies) which may pose special toxicological problems, when used alone or in combination with other drugs. The purpose of pharmacovigilance is to detect, assess, and understand, and to prevent the adverse effects or any other possible drug-related problems, related to herbal, traditional, and complementary medicines.
草药配方作为抗糖尿病药、抗关节炎药、保肝药、止咳药、记忆增强剂和适应原等治疗药物被广泛接受。关于草药最常见的误解是这些药物完全安全，因此患者无需医生处方即可自行安全服用。这种观念导致世界各地的人们大量自我用药，常常导致令人失望的最终结果、副作用或不良后遗症。人们越来越多地意识到需要在多个层面为草药制定药物警戒措施。当前的药物警戒模式及其相关工具是针对合成药物开发的，将这些方法应用于监测草药的安全性，除了传统药物所面临的挑战外，还带来了独特的挑战。一些问题与草药的命名、认知、来源和使用方式有关。这可能是因为非正统药物（如草药疗法）的使用存在差异，单独使用或与其他药物联合使用时可能会带来特殊的毒理学问题。药物警戒的目的是检测、评估、理解并预防与草药、传统和补充药物相关的不良反应或任何其他可能的药物相关问题。
