A DAVAO City councilor is pushing for an ordinance that will regulate the selling and advertising of herbal medicine and food supplements lacking clinical trials in the market due to possible side effects.
Speaking during the Pulong Pulong ni Pulong Tuesday, July 3, Councilor Mary Joselle D. Villafuerte, chair of the committee on health, said during a lay forum that she attended at the Southern Philippines Medical Center (SPMC) it has come to her attention the various reports of adverse side effects of food supplements promising instant healing of any illness.
She said the widespread selling of these herbal medicines and food supplements is due to the lack of regulation before being allowed to be sold in the market. Also, there were several media outfits that advertised it accompanied with healing testimonies and not evidence-based.
“It’s time, I think, to regulate. This time walang regulatory power. I just called Miss Ameth Atanacio, she’s the manager of Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Care here in Davao City, and she told me that they have no regulatory power,” she said.
Thus, Villafuerte said they will work very closely with them to study the possibility of passing an ordinance in the city to regulate unregulated selling and advertisement of alternative medicines.
“Unregulated ang sale, manufacturing, and marketing and advertisement. Kumikita ang media outfit and balik balik cure all. It’s very easy giving false hope sa atong mga consumers (giving false hope to consumers) not to buy expensive medicine,” she added.
Villafuerte said doctors during the lay forum were alarmed with the increasing numbers of dialysis patients in SPMC who have said they are taking food supplements in various forms.
There was also an instance where a patient who is undergoing dialysis, after taking a bottle of liquid concoction, instead of feeling relieved, his case worsened.
Dr. Vida Acosta-Villanueva of the Philippine Society of Nephrologist, who was also present yesterday, underscored the importance of knowing that herbal medicine could also lead to kidney diseases.
“We know that there is a Republic Act accelerating the marketing and manufacture of herbal medicines because in 1997, they noted that medicines were expensive and were being imported into the Philippines which were very costly. The government made an act to promote herbal and traditional medicine,” she said.
However, years after, the manufacturing and selling of these herbal medicines has become unstoppable and become unregulated. They were also uncertain about the mixture of these herbal medicines which may contain substance that is not good for the kidney.
“We nephrologists know that [some of] these compounds, these supplements contains bioactive substances and these are not very well studied unlike other drugs that have chemical trials. The sale of these (herbal) medicines is not back up by adequate studies,” Acosta-Villanueva said.
For them, they want the toxicity and safety profile of the herbal medicine to determine if it is safe for consumption. She said maybe, these medicines can alleviate pains but what the consumers do not know are the side effects that it can cause that may trigger another illness or worsen their disease.
“People might be misinformed that these medicines can cure them from their cancer, from their leukemia, from their cyst, diabetes, and hypertension. Maybe they could have good effect but the toxicity side we don’t know,” Acosta-Villanueva said.
She said nephrologists here are doing their efforts on increasing awareness among the public that herbal medicines are not always the answer to their illness.
“We want to inform them to be aware of these possible side effects and not to believe everything they hear in the radio and in the television because these are not backed by chemical trials,” she said.
Meanwhile, Villafuerte warned the public about fake personalities going around subdivisions introducing themselves as part of the Philippine Institute of Traditional and Alternative Care (PITAC) conducting house to house selling of unknown and overpriced food supplements to senior citizens.
"We will report it to the anti-scam unit of the city and hopefully, we will sit down with my legal team and study the possibility of regulating advertisements regarding food supplements here in Davao City,” she said.