Safety of complementary medicines should be monitored

EDITOR,—Guy Vautier and R C Spiller report on a 32 year old man who died of hepatic failure after taking a complex Chinese herbal mixture.1 They identified one particular herb, Dictamnus dasycarpus, as the probable cause of the hepatotoxity. Recent double blind trials of a formula containing this herb, however, have failed to show any adverse effects on the liver.2 Moreover, an …