Herbalist Dr. Mwea says that, while it is important to regulate the field of traditional medicine, the proposed stringent toxicological and pharmacological clinical trials that traditional healers are required to conduct are too heavy-handed.
“First, the herbalists do not have that type of financial muscle to do it - it takes billions of shillings to run a project into the market. Two, a lot of them also do not have even the knowledge to do that. Three, the government itself, which is proposing these things, they do not even have the facilities,” said Dr. Mwea.
He argues that the successful use of certain plants for thousands of years to treat specific conditions is proof enough of safety.
KEMRI’s Dr. Orwa says the draft policy acknowledges that a traditional drug’s successful long-term use can be evidence of efficacy, as outlined by the World Health Organization.
In her words, the testing requirements are “a little bit mild” and generally do not require nearly a decade of test trials, as is the case with conventional drugs.
Dr. Orwa says she thinks it is no longer true that Kenya’s conventional health-care system rejects the value and richness of traditional medicines. “So now we have a whole center in KEMRI, which is doing research on traditional medicine and open to talk to traditional healers, and we find a lot of clinicians now appreciating," she noted. "In fact, in a few cases, you find the doctors when they cannot handle, they said, try a healer.”
最新
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25
2013-11-25