Printed from the Field Fisher Waterhouse Personal Injury web site
Web address: http://personalinjury.ffw.com//news/2010/feb/doctor-admits-selling-unsafe.aspx

'Doctor' admits selling unsafe pills

 

A Chinese "doctor" has pleaded guilty to selling a civil servant dangerous herbal pills which gave her cancer and destroyed her kidneys after years of use.

Patricia Booth went to Ying "Susan" Booth for a natural medicine to get rid of some spots, and was sold tiny brown "Xie Gan Wan" tablets.

The 58-year-old civil servant returned to the shop in Chemsford, Essex for more than five years as she took the tablets three times a day.

At the Old Bailey in London, a judge said there was no evidence Wu, 48, knew the pills could be dangerous as there is no regulation on selling traditional Chinese medicines.

Old Bailey London
Wu, from Holland-on-Sea, Essex, admitted a series of lesser charges after the judge dismissed a greater charge of "administering a noxious substance". The Old Bailey, London

She will be sentenced at a later date, but the Register of Chinese Herbal Medicine used the case to call for trade regulation.

The Register represents more than 450 herbal doctors and said Wu's case showed "the urgent need for the statutory regulation of herbal medicine in the UK".