Medicated patches may be detrimental

Most medicated patches containing herbal medicine, popular antidotes for muscular pain in Taiwan, fail to comply with regulations, Taipei City's Bureau of Health (衛生局) said yesterday.

The Department of Health's Committee on Chinese Medicine and Pharmacy (中醫藥委員會) said there are currently no official statistics indicating the popularity of the medicated patches in Taiwan, but that 1.7 billion such patches are used each year in Japan.

"But the Industrial Development Bureau under the Ministry of Economic Affairs has broadly estimated that Taiwan has an annual market for 1 billion medicated patches," said an official from the committee.

"Medicated patches are the star products in the developing market for Chinese medicines," said Chiang Yu-mei (姜郁美), head of the drug-control section at Taipei's health bureau. She said that the patches' ease of application and the fact that, unlike some oral medications, they do not affect the digestive system have led to their increasing popularity.

The health bureau yesterday said that according to a recent inspection conducted by the bureau and the National Laboratories of Foods and Drugs (藥物食品檢驗局), about 60 percent of medicated patches have failed to meet the standards stipulated by regulations governing the pharmaceuticals industry.

According to the bureau, 65 percent of the products contain butylated hydroxytoluene (BHT), an antioxidant and food preservative. Forty-four percent do not carry labels informing the consumer of the products' exact content. Twenty-eight percent were found to contain the Western pharmaceutical diphenhydramine HCL, an antihistamine drug, along with the herbs.

Regulations clearly state that herbal medicine patches should not contain any Western pharmaceuticals.

BHT is currently suspected of being a carcinogen. Pharmaceutical products require licenses before they may be placed on the market and licensing regulations require that all their ingredients be accurately stated. All products to which BHT has been added without the proper authorities being notified are therefore in breach of the regulations. "The lack of information about the BHT used makes it difficult to tell whether the amount of BHT might be harmful to human health," said Chiang.

Diphenhydramine HCL is a treatment for allergies and inflammations, which causes drowsiness and fatigue. Users of products containing it must be informed of possible dangers when driving or operating heavy machinery.

Chiang said that Taiwan had never carried out an inspection of medicated patches and that the lack of scrutiny was a factor contributing to the poor quality of the products and their violation of pharmaceutical regulations.

The official emphasized that with the market for medicated patches growing, the committee is working on upgrading the quality of the products to ensure the health of users and enable the market to be developed.

One of the seven hospitals in Taiwan that began clinical trials of locally developed Chinese herbal remedies in June has also been conducting clinical trials of medicated patches.