A guilty plea in the Chinese TCM poisoning case - and further calls for herbal practitioner regulation

 The BBC reports http://bit.ly/cTGhVj  that a Chinese medicine provider had pleaded guilty to inadvertently poisoning a customer who is now very seriously ill.  Civil servant  Patricia Booth took pills provided by the Chinese Herbal Medical Centre  in Chelmsford, Essex for over five years, leading to cancer and kidney failure.

The European Herbal and Traditional Medicine Practitioners Association are among those calling this a 'tragedy that should have been avoided'  http://bit.ly/b4whdw  The EHTPA and other bodies have been arguing for the proper regulation of herbal medicines for many years.  They say 'in June 2008, herbalist Michael McIntyre and scientist Professor Michael Pittilo met with the then Health Minister Ben Bradshaw to advise him that statutory regulation of herbalists must go ahead as swiftly as possible in the interest of patient safety.'