...he asked the Health Minister about the regulation of herbal and homeopathic medicine as advertised by various hakeems and homeopathic doctors.
The minister’s answer, written as well as verbal, created confusion and led to a prolonged discussion on the point.
In the first part of the answer, the House was informed that under Section (24) of the Drugs Act 1976 no advertisement of any medicine or disease could be published without prior permission of the Federal Ministry of Health. Interestingly, the third part of the written answer says since such medicines do not come under the ambit of the Drug Act 1976, there is no restriction on their manufacturing or sale. The minister took the same stance and argued that non-traditional medicines like ginseng could not be checked anywhere.
PML-N Parliamentary Secretary Rana Sanaullah, Rana Aftab and Dr Nadia Aziz pointed out that anything could be sold under the guise of herbal medicine. When the minister said the department did take some samples and sent the cases to the Drug Court, he had no clue what happened to those cases filed in 2001 and 2002. Rana Sanaullah said contrary to the government’s claim of working on a draft to bring new legislation on the issue, nothing was achieved in the last two years.
However, Dr Tahir said the matter was discussed about four months back and the law would soon be formulated.
Dr Farzana Nazeer commented that the government did not have a magic wand to attain the desired results overnight.