Why traditional Chinese medicine often falls into the "quality gate"

The suspicion of "cinnabar price medicine" and "excessive mercury" has not been dispelled A "vitamin C Yinqiao tablet" was recently banned by the Hong Kong Health Department Then an international environmental protection organization released a survey report that 70% of the products sampled by nine major Chinese medicine brands in China contained pesticide residues Recently, traditional Chinese medicine has fallen into the "quality gate" repeatedly, which has aroused great public concern People can't help asking: is our traditional Chinese medicine safe? The reporter visited Anhui, Hebei, Shandong and other places to investigate the cultivation, trade, processing and manufacturing of traditional Chinese medicine Bozhou City, Anhui Province, is one of the important production areas and main distribution centers of traditional Chinese medicine materials It is known as the "capital of Chinese medicine" and the largest trading center of traditional Chinese medicine in China According to the investigation in Bozhou, Anhui Province, the excessive pesticide residues of traditional Chinese medicine may be related to the field management mode of traditional Chinese medicine planting In order to prevent diseases and insect pests and weed, pesticides need to be used many times in the process of planting traditional Chinese medicine, according to a farmer who has planted traditional Chinese medicine for more than 10 years in Bozhou City Some varieties of traditional Chinese medicine, even before planting in the field, have to be dusted with pesticides During the period from seedling emergence to mature harvest, there are also one or two times of spraying pesticides What, how and when to apply pesticides are generally based on their own experience They are very random and lack of scientific and systematic quantitative control Zhang Yayu, director of the Chinese Herbal Medicine Research Office of the Specialty Research Institute of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, told reporters that, like vegetables, grains and fruits, pesticide residues are inevitable in the planting process of Chinese herbal medicine "However, we should try our best to control pesticide residues within the safe range, and strengthen supervision and detection." In addition to excessive pesticide residues, heavy metals are almost a public secret in the traditional Chinese medicine industry The causes of heavy metals exceeding the standard are relatively complex, including the late factors such as production and processing, as well as the congenital factors such as heavy metals exceeding the standard in soil Some traders of traditional Chinese medicine in Bozhou told reporters that, taking the production and processing process as an example, some pharmaceutical manufacturers will use industrial sulfur to fumigate the traditional Chinese medicine in order to sell it at a good price, which contains heavy metals In this way, the processed traditional Chinese medicine will naturally have the problem of heavy metals exceeding the standard Pingyi County, Shandong Province, is the largest honeysuckle price producing area and trade distribution center in China Fu Xiao, director of Pingyi County honeysuckle price and fruit tea management office, told reporters, "due to the good quality and high popularity of Pingyi honeysuckle price in recent years, some foreign honeysuckle prices even shanyinhua flowed into the local market, replacing inferior ones with genuine ones, disturbing the market order." In addition, the reporter also found that some informal small enterprises will sell the residue of Chinese herbal medicines after extracting effective pharmaceutical ingredients to the market at a low price After some illegal merchants purchase the dregs, they use dyeing, doping and other means to deal with them, and then mix them into good Chinese herbal medicines according to a certain proportion, so as to make a huge profit And the normal pharmaceutical factories all adopt the way of direct destruction to deal with the dregs According to the staff of Bozhou drug administration, dyeing and weight gain are the two most common illegal phenomena in the investigation and sampling of drug administration Dyeing refers to the use of chemical dyes by some lawless elements to dye different kinds of medicinal materials in order to sell medicinal materials at a high price; weight increasing refers to dissolving the weight increasing agent in water, then sprinkling the water on the medicinal materials, and the weight increasing agent will be absorbed into the medicinal materials, or adsorbed on the surface of the medicinal materials Some medicinal materials with fluffy internal structure and light texture are easy to be mixed with weight increasing agents, such as Tongtong Grass price, white peony price, red flower price, etc Xu Dujuan, chief of the pharmacy department of the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University, said that dyeing and weight enhancers affect the quality of medicinal materials and will cause harm to human body For example, excessive intake of magnesium sulfate, the weight-gain agent in the medicine, may cause diarrhea and paralysis, and even respiratory paralysis and cardiac arrest Some dealers of traditional Chinese medicine say that the problems of dyeing and weight-gain agents exist in TCM distribution centers all over the country to varying degrees, which is driven by huge interests For example, the price of weight enhancers is only a few hundred yuan per ton, which is extremely low For every kilogram of precious medicinal materials, they can earn hundreds of yuan or even tens of thousands of yuan, which is extremely profitable It is understood that although Bozhou local drug regulatory authorities have been cracking down on such illegal acts, there are always people who take risks driven by huge profits In Bozhou City, almost every year, many people are sentenced for counterfeiting traditional Chinese medicine In addition to illegal traditional Chinese medicine dealers, some famous traditional Chinese medicine brands also "sell dog meat with sheep's head" Some dealers of traditional Chinese Medicine reported to reporters that some well-known brands of traditional Chinese medicine, although they have their own planting bases of traditional Chinese medicine, are not all from this The so-called "planting base" is just a cover, mainly to publicize to the public that the source of its medicinal materials has quality assurance In fact, most of their medicines are purchased from market vendors at a low price, and then pasted with their own brand packaging, and the price soared, even doubled several times.