Running head: OTC MEDICINE VERSUS HERBAL MEDICINE
Over-the-Counter Medicine Versus Herbal Medicine: Which is safer?
Huizi Gao
Northeastern University
1
OTC MEDICINE VERSUS HERBAL MEDICINE
Over-the-Counter Medicine Versus Herbal Medicine: Which is safer?
While over-the-counter medicine has been used and relied on for many years now, a new
type of medicine, herbal medicine, has emerged and is recently favored by the public. There are
many reasons why herbal medicine is chosen, like its affordability. One of the most concerning
reasons why patients are selecting herbal medicine is for its debatable safety. Many patients will
favor the fact that herbal medicines are natural, so therefore they think herbal medicines are safe
to take. On the contrary, there has been very little research on the safety of herbal medicine in the
United States (Bent & Ko, 2004). According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA),
new drugs are considered to be unsafe until they are proven safe through clinical trials. The FDA
must also approve any new drug, over-the-counter or prescription, before it can be sold on the
market. However, herbal medicines are put under the category of food. They have different
regulations than over-the-counter drugs and are considered safe until proven unsafe. A huge
concern is that the FDA approval is not needed for selling any kind of herbal medicine. It is up to
the manufacturers to make sure all claims and information on the product label are correct. If
there is wrongful labeling, it puts the patient’s health in danger (Raynor et al., 2011). Interactions
with other products and adverse reactions are also likely for herbal medicine, which is something
else that manufacturers need to address correctly (Jeong et al., 2012).
Even though over-the-counter medicine is strictly regulated by the FDA, it doesn’t mean
it is completely safe either. The major issue is the lack of healthcare professional input.
Healthcare professionals rarely ask patients about their OTC (over-the-counter) medication use
or give advice to patients before purchasing. Another concern is that OTC medication purchases
are not recorded in any system and that there is no healthcare information about the purchasers
(Albert et al., 2014). Patients could be buying the wrong OTC medication without realizing it or
OTC MEDICINE VERSUS HERBAL MEDICINE
they could be buying many OTC medications at a time. Due to its easy accessibility, OTC
medicines could be potentially abused by patients (Cooper, 2013). OTC medicines are also
known to have serious adverse effects, like liver damage and toxicity. One more issue is that
patients might not understand all the ingredients in OTC medicines. Unlike herbal medicine,
OTC medicines are chemically made. This could be a problem if the patient is taking another
type of prescription medicine and the OTC medicine could interfere (Bond & Hannaford, 2003).
In short, both OTC medicine and herbal medicine are very different, but both have positive and
negative similarities. Currently, OTC medicine is recommended over herbal medicine because
OTC medicine is FDA approved. This does not mean the public should stop using herbal
medicines, but they should be informed on how safely take them instead. It is easy to have
misconceptions about these two types of medicines. This paper will analyze the differences and
similarities between herbal medicine and OTC medicine while focusing on their safety for use.
Reflective note: This abstract is a response to a general call for papers for the
Pharmacoepidemiology and Drug Safety, published by John Wiley & Sons. Although they are
many pros and cons to both herbal medicine and OTC medicine, the goal of this paper is to
inform and educate the general public about them. This paper will focus on comparing and
contrasting the safety of herbal medicine and OTC medicine. Most of the research process is
done through the Northeastern University Library.
OTC MEDICINE VERSUS HERBAL MEDICINE
References:
1. Albert, S. M., Bix, L., Bridgeman, M. M., Carstensen, L. L., Dyer-Chamberlain, M.,
Neafsey, P. J., & Wolf, M. S. (2014). Promoting Safe and Effective Use of OTC
Medications: CHPA-GSA National Summit. Gerontologist, 54(6), 909-918.
2. Bent, S., Ko, R. (2004). Commonly used herbal medicines in the United States: a review.
American Journal of Medicine, 116(7), 478–485.
3. Bond, C., Hannaford, P. (2003). Issues Related to Monitoring the Safety of Over-TheCounter (OTC) Medicines. Drug Safety, 26(15), 1065-1074.
4. Cooper, R. (2013). Surveillance and uncertainty: community pharmacy responses to over
the counter medicine abuse. Health & Social Care In The Community, 21(3), 254-262.
5. Dietary Supplements. (2015, April 28). Retrieved June 9, 2015, from
http://www.fda.gov/Food/DietarySupplements/
6. Jeong, T., Park, B., Cho, J., Kim, Y., Ahn, Y., & Son, C. (2012). A prospective study on
the safety of herbal medicines, used alone or with conventional medicines. Journal Of
Ethnopharmacology, 143(3), 884-888.
7. Raynor, D., Dickinson, R., Knapp, P., Long, A., & Nicolson, D. (2011). Buyer beware?
Does the information provided with herbal products available over the counter enable
safe use? BMC Medicine, 94(9).