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EDITORIALS: Martin R Tramèr Aspirin, like all other drugs, is a poison BMJ 2000; 321: 1170-1171 [Full text]

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Is willow bark hazardous?

Ron Law   (12 November 2000)

Is willow bark hazardous? 12 November 2000
Ron Law, Executive Director NNFA Send response to journal: Re: Is willow bark hazardous?	We know that willow bark has been used to relieve pain and inflammation for several millenia, but is there any evidence that it causes bleeding? I recall an FDA press release in 1995 saying, "there is no evidence that willow bark causes the same adverse effects as Aspirin; but there might be." or words to that effect. Given that millions still use willow bark (as judged by complementary healthcare product sales,) I have not seen any evidence of adverse effects due to it. Perhaps someone could shed some light on this dilema. Ron Law is also a member of the New Zealand Ministry of Health working group advising the Director General of Health on mandatory medical error reporting. He also lectures in management at the Auckland University of Technology and has a particular interest in evidence based regulation within the healthcare industry. His research of to date has revealed that whilst there have been approximately 100,000 deaths in Australia and New Zealand over the past decade, there has only been one contested death due to complementary healthcare products. He is desperately seeking evidence to support the fact that Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration spends more than 10% of its entire budget regulating an industry with one of the lowest measurable risk profiles of all industries. An evidence based risk profile of 1/100,000 seems inordinately out of proportion to the 1/10 allocation of resource.