Some herbal teas and juices may have to be registered as medicines with the Irish Medicines Board (IMB), a seminar heard yesterday.
A proposed regulation system for traditional herbal remedies includes teas and juices, which would be examined on a "case-by-case" basis to determine whether they were foods or medicines.
The provision was criticised at the seminar, organised by the Irish Medicines Board, and which included speakers from the herbal medicines sector, including manufacturers, retailers and herbalists.
The proposed regulation system has been proposed to the Minister for Health and Children by the IMB in the light of an EU draft directive on the issue. No specific teas or juices are named.
Representatives of the herbal sector referred, on a number of occasions, to the decision by the IMB four years ago to make St John's Wort - a herb used to treat depression - a prescription-only product. The IMB says St John's Wort has been found to interact adversely with drugs for transplant patients and with anti-AIDS drugs.
The chief executive of the IMB, Dr Frank Hallinan, told the seminar that his organisation "has no bias against or in favour of any particular type of medicinal product."
Under the proposed system, a herbal medicinal product could only be registered for sale if it was safe and of good quality. Dr Hallinan told The Irish Times this did not involve the sort of exhaustive and expensive clinical trials required for conventional drugs.
Ms Aideen Hurley of the Irish Association of Health Stores, told the seminar that conventional drugs are the fourth-largest cause of death in the US. "On the other hand, St John's Wort has had no reports of deaths in Ireland, the UK or in any other EU member-state", she said.
The proposed regulations are available at http://www.imb.ie, the IMB's website.