Botanical Medicines — The Need for New Regulations

In 2001, 17. 8 billion was spent in the United States on dietary supplements, 4. 2 billion of it for herbs and other botanical remedies. 1 The popularity of these products has increased over the past decade, probably stimulated by sharp increases in prices of prescription drugs, restricted access to physicians imposed by managed care, media reports of adverse effects of prescription drugs, and, most important, the enactment in 1994 of the Dietary Supplement and Health Education Act (DSHEA). By broadly defining herbs and other botanicals as “dietary supplements, ” the DSHEA substantially altered the definitions, standards, and mechanisms under which claims about the. . .