Just days after China's State Administration of Traditional Chinese Medicine (SATCM) vowed to promote the internationalization of TCM, the British Medicine and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) issued a warning on August 20 that "a number of unlicensed TCMs were not allowed to be uses as they were found to contain dangerously high levels of lead, mercury and arsenic."

Richard Woodfield, MHRA's Head of Herbal Policy said, "The adulteration of traditional Chinese medicines with heavy metals is a significant international problem and can pose a serious risk to public health." The warning also cited the Swedish National Food Agency‘s (SFNA) finding that extremely high levels of arsenic were found in a variety of TCMs, including Niu-Huang Chieh-tu-pein, Divya Kaishore Guggul and Chandraprabha Vati.

The impact on the TCM industry may be far-reaching as worries that TCMs may pose serious risks to public health are likely to cause other countries to follow suit.

The warning provoked angry responses from China's TCM industry. Wang Lian, office director of SATCM, has called for the profound understanding of TCM. "This is a matter of where to draw the line between Western standards and ours. There is a misunderstanding about the workings of TCMs. TCMs are typically made up of mixtures of elements such as botanicals, animal parts and minerals. One single element does not constitute a medicinal recipe. Some botanicals by themselves may be poisonous and harmful to the body, yet when several elements are mixed and processed into a medicinal recipe, their respective properties will change. As a result, the side effect is reduced as much as possible. That is the difference between Chinese medicine and Western medicine. In fact, Chinese herbology was tested by ancient people thousands of years ago, and proved effective," Wang explained.

Since the introduction of TCM in Western countries decades ago, the controversy surrounding herbal medication has never ceased to exist. Skeptical medical scientists tend to associate Chinese medicine with quackery or witchcraft, whereas Chinese medicine is actually also losing its weight in China as Western medicine has come to dominate the current market. Now, TCM faces a bumpier road in its pursuit of "going global."

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