Health Ministry Rebuffs Ayurvedic Drug Toxicity Claims

Late last month controversy emerged over the safety of Ayurvedic medicines, a system of healing that originated in ancient India, stirring concerns that these Indian herbal medicines contain toxic metals beyond permitted levels.

An article in the August 27 issue of the Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) confirmed at the time that the plant-based Ayurvedic medicines contain unacceptable levels of toxic metals. The permissible limit is 10ppm for lead, 3ppm for arsenic and 1ppm for mercury.

However, in response to the JAMA report, Union health ministry’s Department of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) has issued a statement saying the report is "seriously flawed" and "discloses a strong bias against Ayurvedic medicines".

In his JAMA report, Robert B. Saper, M.D., M.P.H., of Boston University School of Medicine and Boston Medical Center has stated that Ayurvedic medicines, often mixes of herbs and supplements, used in India for thousands of years to promote health actually contain levels of lead, mercury and arsenic which exceed acceptable standards.

Saper also recommended at the time that this Indian herbal therapy need to be strictly regulated. He said, "Since 1978 more than 80 cases of lead poisoning associated with Ayurvedic medicine use have been reported worldwide."

But, the ministry rebuffed all those claims and said India does not officially export herbo-metallic compounds due to heavy metal concerns. “Only purely herbal Ayurveda, Unani and Siddha medicines are being exported from India with effect from January 1, 2006,” the ministry said in a press release issued on Tuesday.

“Indian scientists and research institutions will be responding to the issues raised by Saper, howsoever flawed they may be, through research articles based on their work on Ayurvedic medicines in due course," it further stated.

The ministry responded to the controversial report only after testing samples of 600 Indian medicinal plants collected from the wild as well as various medicinal plant gardens in India. Scientists tested all the collected plant samples in three top laboratories - Indian Institute of Toxicological Research, Lucknow, Sri Ram Institute of Industrial Toxicology, New Delhi, and Centre for Research in Indian Medicine, Shastra University, Thanjavur.

“The test reports received from these three laboratories disclose that lead, mercury and arsenic have not been found in these 600 Indian medicinal plants samples above the permissible limits laid down by WHO (World Health Organisation),” the health ministry said.

Ayurvedic medicine is a system of healing that originated in the early civilizations of India some 3,000-5,000 years ago. This form of traditional medicine and health philosophy relies mainly on herbal products. Today, Ayurvedic medicine is used by 80% of the population in India, and has become an increasingly accepted alternative medical treatment in America during the last two decades.

Herbal-only and Rasa Shastra are two major types of Ayurvedic medicines. In the latter form of herbal therapy metals like mercury, lead, iron and zinc, minerals like mica and gems, like pearl are deliberately combined with herbs to produce a therapeutic effect.