Call for statutory regulation for alternative system of medicine

Lack of government regulation on alternative medicine practitioners, herbalists and naturopaths has become a major concern in Australia. Absence of legislation for these traditional treatments may prove dangerous for consumers as pointed out by Prof. Kerryn Phelps. She is president of an organisation called the Australian Integrative Medical Association that promotes coexistence of alternative and conventional treatments.

She is of the opinion that practitioners of traditional medicines should be brought under national registration standards as doctors and dentists of conventional systems of medicine. According to her, registration for naturopaths and herbalists will ensure minimum level of education in the respective professions among the practitioners of alternative medicinal system. In the absence of a statutory control over these medicines, people find themselves vulnerable in the hands of semi qualified or even fake practitioners. She said:

“Consumers need to look whether the practitioner they are seeing is qualified and what qualification they have, and make sure that the courses [they completed] are from a recognized institution.”

A New South Wales state Parliament inquiry was conducted over regulation of Chinese medicines in the year 2005, but till date no legislation has been introduced. Introduction of quality and uniformity of training, accreditation, professional education were some of the recommendations included in the inquiry report.

However, because of high demand from the Australian Register of Naturopaths and Herbalists (ARONA) for registration, from this year, naturopaths may finally become registered naturopaths.
Even importation of herbs for traditional treatments needs greater regulation, because a recent study by Adelaide professor Roger Byard revealed that herbal medicines imported from Asia in US contained dangerous levels of toxins metals such as arsenic, mercury and also lead.  

Prof. Phelps said:
“The problem is not with standardizing manufacturing of herbal medicines in Australia. The problem lies with raw herbs that are coming from overseas where they don’t have the manufacturing practices that we have in Australia.”

In majority of states in Australia there are no compulsory registration requirements for Chinese medicines practitioners. They can easily open their clinics without any registration.