Pharmacovigilance for Herbal and Traditional Medicines

This remarkable new book is the first text dedicated to the topic of pharmacovigilance for herbal and traditional medicines. Taking a truly global perspective, this volume draws together contributions from a diverse group of experts, writing on current knowledge and practices in pharmacovigilance for herbal and traditional medicines, and on advances and innovation in monitoring the safety of this unique and complex category of products and preparations. In part one, the book discusses the current status of pharmacovigilance for herbal and traditional medicines, including the importance of natural products chemistry to harms, and its relevance in considering how pharmacovigilance for these products could be undertaken. Several other chapters discuss methodological approaches and ongoing challenges in pharmacovigilance for herbal and traditional medicines, including issues relating to nomenclature, coding and classification, and the nuances involved in causality assessment. Part two of the book focusses on pharmacovigilance for herbal and traditional medicines around the world, with chapters from authors in several different countries representing diverse historical, ethnic, cultural, social and political contexts. These chapters provide deeper insights and perspectives into spontaneous reporting for herbal and traditional medicines in those countries, and in the context of the local use, practice and regulatory landscape for these products. Part two also provides an overview and new analysis of international case safety reports for herbal medicines held in VigiBase (the World Health Organization's global database of individual case safety reports, maintained by the Uppsala Monitoring Centre). This book is aimed at pharmacists, doctors, nurses and other health professionals, herbal-medicine practitioners and organisations, herbal medicine and pharmaceutical industry personnel, pharmacovigilance specialists, medicines' regulators, health and social science researchers and academics, pharmacovigilance and health professional students, and students of herbal and traditional medicine, throughout the world. It is an extremely valuable resource for all individuals whose work touches the intersection between herbal medicines and pharmacovigilance, and it provides both an introduction to the topic and a deeper, comprehensive, contemporary account of the topic.

Auteur

Joanne Barnes is Associate Professor in Herbal Medicines in the School of Pharmacy, the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She initially trained as a pharmacist in the UK, completed a PhD in Pharmacy at the University of London and further study in pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has been working in the field of pharmacovigilance for herbal and traditional medicines for over 25 years, and is a leading researcher and author in this field. Her research includes identifying new signals of herbal safety concerns, developing innovative methods for safety monitoring for herbal medicines, and exploring the contributions that consumers and health professionals make to pharmacovigilance for these widely used products. Dr Barnes was elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (in 2003) and as a Fellow of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP, in 2020). She was previously elected to the Executive Committee of ISoP (2006-09) and was the Foundation Lead of the ISoP special interest group on Herbal and Traditional Medicines from 2017 to 2022; she has led the Western Pacific chapter of ISoP since 2020. Dr Barnes is a member of the editorial board of several high-ranking academic journals in the fields of herbal medicines, drug safety, and pharmacy, and has co-authored several books on scientific aspects of herbal medicines. Dr Barnes serves/has served on several government advisory committees and other similar bodies in the UK and New Zealand as an expert on herbal medicines, particularly their safety, regulation and pharmacovigilance. In realising this unique book, Dr Barnes has drawn on her extensive international networks and research collaborations to include chapter contributions from a diverse range of academics, pharmacovigilance specialists, medicines' regulators and others.