[Risks related to the uncontrolled development of pharmacognosy in the United States and France]

A number of plants of ancestral tradition exhibit properties deserving therapeutic applications. However, their use in conditions which do not guarantee sufficient safety may lead to incidences and sometimes serious accidents. In the US the weakness of the present provisions of the federal regulation do not allow a satisfactory and preliminary control. Moreover, these plants are mostly prescribed by non-medicals and outside the authority of pharmacists. This situation would be highly prejudicial if it would be implemented in Europe. France has a well conceived and satisfactory system, but which is unable to benefit from new accessions, namely exotic plants. To ignore them would lead to strengthening the already existing and parallel organizations. The authors suggest that the health authorities should create a complementary system open to new medicinal plants, avoiding uncontrolled sales. They suggest also that before any acceptance a realistic probationary period would be applied in order to evaluate the quality but overall the eventual toxicity of these plants.