How long until health foods become illegal?

Last month Ying Wu, a Chinese herbal medicine practitioner from Essex, pleaded guilty to charges of supplying a banned substance to a client who later went on to develop cancer.

The substance in question, aristolochic acid, has been used in traditional medicines for thousands of years. However within the last decade it has been identified as a carcinogen and banned.

Concerns about the potential toxicity of herbal medicines have been growing over the decades. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has been linked to liver failure on several occasions and surveys of Ayurvedic medicines have found up to 20 per cent contain dangerous levels of heavy metals. In another study, up to 3 per cent of herbal preparations to...

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