Myanmar’s consumer protection agency is ordering an investigation into the extent to which the country’s traditional medicine has been contaminated with Western counterparts, according to local media.
The move comes after members of the public apparently complained that some traditional medicines no longer worked as well as they once did and expressed fears that compound drugs could be having ill effects on their health.
“I always took traditional medicine to cure my ailments; as soon as I took it my headaches, and what have you, all immediately dissipated,” school-teacher Aye Aye Htay told the Global New Light of Myanmar.
“I didn’t notice at first but after a while I started to feel odd and went to the health department to inquire as to whether the medicine I had ingested included traces of western medicine.
“But that proved unsuccessful as they requested many samples of the medicine I had ingested together with an array of paperwork; it was too much for me to manage. As such, it would be good if the government were to carry out such a task.”
Traditional medicine, which makes use of local fresh and dried plants and herbs, is practiced by as much as 85 per cent of Myanmar’s population according to government figures, both as a supplement and alternative to western variants.
Many modern medicines – including malaria wonder drug Artemisinin – are extracted from natural products originally used as traditional remedies. But the fusion of traditional and western medication is illegal under Myanmar’s Indigenous Medicine Act and violators face fines.
“The public have expressed to us their desire for some traditional medicines to be checked [for traces of western drugs],” Ba Oak Chine, chair of the Myanmar Consumer Protection Agency. But, it’s not clear as to whether the Food and Drugs Administration of the Department of Traditional Medicine would be responsible for the conduction of such inspections.
“In order for such inspections to be carried out, we’ll send an official letter of request to the Minister of Health during August. The entreaty will include calls to support traditional Myanmar medicines.”
