“A civil servant suffered cancer and kidney failure after taking pills sold by a Chinese herbal shop to clear up spots on her face, a court heard today. Patricia Booth took the medicine bought at a shop in Chelmsford, Essex, for five and a half years, a jury was told.
The Chinese Herbal Medical Centre advertised its products as “safe and natural and without side effects”, the Old Bailey heard. Mrs Booth was taken ill months after she stopped taking the pills, and they were found to contain a banned substance, aristolochic acid, the court was told. Mrs Booth’s health deteriorated to such an extent that her kidneys were “destroyed”, she had cancer, and suffered a heart attack. She now has to go to hospital three times a week for dialysis and would be unable to come to court, instead giving evidence via videolink, jurors heard.
Julian Christopher, prosecuting, said Wu was employed as a “Chinese doctor” at the shop, which was in business from late 1996 until August 2003. He said: “The case is concerned with pills which the prosecution allege were given by Susan Wu to one particular patient to take every day to clear up spots on her face and which the patient continued to take for five and a half years. “They did indeed clear up her skin but turned out to have disastrous consequences. They completely destroyed her kidneys and gave her cancer.” ”
Read more at The Independent (Thanks Nick P)
Better send this one to the Daily mail… the would love to add this to their 100+ list of things that give you cancer
Hm, from what I read there’s not that many cases that developed cancer after taking them but the FDA will not want to take any risk, and therefor banned them till further research has been done.
Regulat medicine cause so many problems in patients on the side as well .. but will be taken care of by other medicine.
High doses of anything might be good for one thing as usual but might trigger some other things as well (the body after all is a huge network, one change here will lead to several changes in the whole system).
Parts of the potatoe plant and many other plants can not be eaten by many animals .. nor by us.
It is powerfull energy … plants ..
Too much meat, too much of this .. too much of that … all not good if taken over a long period.
yeah, really…the chinese must be the most advanced medical society in the world if they can pinpoint the cause of any particular cancer with such accuracy. :/ was it pat robertson who said timothy leary’s prostate cancer was caused by all the drugs he took? gee, i never knew pat was chinese!
kidney failure i can believe–nobody ever seems to consider that when they’re ingesting some kinda new substance; but it’s not unusual.
“there’s not that many cases that developed cancer”? You are out of your (demonstrably tiny) mind. Graduate of the Dan Quayle spelling bee competition too, I note.
I’m not some kind of hippy alterna-medicine advocate in the slightest but ‘Western’ or REAL medicines sometimes cause cancers too.
The line about the pills clearing up the spots is just stupid too. Most teenagers get sports in their mid/late teens until their late teens/early twenties. The average period they last is less than 5 years. It\’s terrible that they\’re taking credit for the spots going away. It\’s like saying, sorry we gave you cancer and kidney failure but… your spots did go away!
Since when does ginger root, boiled cockroach and grounded rhino penis give you cancer?
Sure it doesn’t cure spots but it doesn’t cause cancer either. I think it’s a ridiculous case first of all the woman went to see the chinese alternative medicine store herself.
Chemotherapy destroys immune system, radiation therapy causes cancer, … so where should we look for something that works?
“They did indeed clear up her skin..” – a rather redundant and inappropriate observation under the circumstances, surely!
aristolochic acid is one of the more toxic and carcinogenic substances known to science. Remember the incident in Belgium in 1990s when over 100 women got kidney failure when they took sliimming product that contained aristolochia
Thank you ‘Corporal’ for finally having some fact-based comment regarding this matter -There was a court case a few years ago after my mother had to have her kidneys removed after taking some chinese herbal pills to help cure her psoriasis – she also had her urethras (unsure if that is how it is spelt) removed to prevent her getting cancer of the bladder. The case was lost as the chinese practitioner claimed ignorance, even though any pills containing aristolochia had been banned 2 years previously (it was brought to court by the Medicines Control Agency – not my mother) yet still they are getting away with it – unbelievable!