Many of our herbs have long standing traditions of being used as both a food and for medical purposes. Some of our earliest known records go back over 6000 years, well before the time of pregnancy tests.
However, these days, we do like to be safe with what we consume, especially if we are supporting something as fragile and precious as a baby. That’s why it’s always best to be absolutely sure that what we eat and drink can’t do any harm. All of our medicines are tested rigorously before they are licensed for use. This includes clinical trials to check that they are safe. These trials are very expensive to perform and if they are using living creatures as test subjects, they have to meet very high ethical standards in order to be authorised to be performed. These standards rise yet again if the subjects are human. It’s pretty much impossible to test medicines on pregnant women.
Food doesn’t need to be tested like this but there is still an obligation to be safe, especially if that food isn’t part of the ‘normal’ diet in current times. Although all the herbs I sell have a long tradition of being consumed, the clinical tests simply haven’t been done to check their safety. It’s still possible to have allergies and intolerences to new food stuffs and whilst I only sell herbs that have very limited risk when consumed occasionally, unless the testing has been done, I can’t guarantee their safety 100%.
So why aren’t herbs tested? basically, it comes down to two things: cost and ethics.
The drug companies that do these tests have their own internal laboratory teams, medical teams, legal teams etc so it reduces the overall cost of testing, even though it’s still ridiculously expensive. That’s why drug companies only explore medicines that they believe will sell well enough to recoup these costs. Herbs are essentially cheap compared to medicines and it just isn’t in the financial reach of anyone who cares about herbs to put them through these trials.
Also, it’s worth remembering that before these trials take place in people, they usually take place in an animal model, which means, basically, animal testing and that’s something that is becoming increasingly unacceptable to people.
The long and short of it is, that to be totally safe, I have to make the recommendation that you check with your medical practitioner and a medical herbalist when trying new herbs or if you have a medical condition or are pregnant or breast feeding. Your safety is my priority.
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