Unauthorized herbal medicine harming public

Saudi Gazette

MAKKAH — The municipality shut down four stores selling herbal medicine recently.

Makkah Municipality Environmental Health General Director Mansour Balubaid said lately there has been a phenomenon of a lot of counterfeit and harmful herbal medicine and mixtures that are sold to the general public.

“The department formed a committee to combat the phenomenon. The committee’s latest activities was an inspection campaign in Al-Misfalah area. The inspectors in the campaign visited junk stores and stores selling unauthorized herbal medicine,” said Balubaid.

He added these unauthorized products are harming the general public and consumers and the municipality will not be lenient in penalizing the vending of unlicensed and unauthorized products.

The head of the committee Fahd Al-Asiri said the inspection campaign was done in cooperation with the pharmacist Fahd Al-Qurashi and a number of other specialists.

“There were 19 violating stores, four of them were shut down for 15 days for operating without a license and selling products that are harmful to one person. The inspectors seized 21,000 bottles of herbal mixtures containing led. 13,500 bottles of mixtures claimed to cure sexual diseases, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes and other illnesses. There is no validations for all these claims,” said Al-Asiri.

He added the inspectors also seized 140 bottles of herbal mixtures claimed to improve fertility. The municipality encourages the general public to be proactive in reporting any violations sighted by calling 940 and warned the general public from consuming unauthorized medication.