Heavy Metal Contamination of Chinese Soil

Something the TCM community has long turned a blind eye to is the heavy metal contamination of chinese soil. While at least one herb importer tests about 50 herbs for a few heavy metals, these tests are mainly focused on cultivated plants and those most commonly used. However the vast majority of plants are not tested and evidence suggests they are highly contaminated. In fact, one proposed solution to the soil contamination is to grow certain plants that are know to have high uptake rates of heavy metals. China's industrialization has increased dramatically in the past decade. They burn many times more coal than they used to and cars have largely replaced bicycles as the main form of transportation on most city streets. When many of us got into this field, even though we all knew China was a very polluted country, the problem has grown exponentially. With all due respect to the few herbs on the American market that are actually tested, we must realize that such herbs are not being tested by independent outsiders, but rather by the very vested interests who sell those herbs.

Many in the herbal community would not trust such a regulatory scheme if it involved your local water or soil, yet have no trouble dispensing huge amounts of herbs to their patients for profit. This is just one more reason, people should be very concerned about any longterm use of Chinese herbs. In addition, issues of species decimation is now also becoming a reality, especially in the aftermath of SARS and the foremath of Avian flu. Things have changed and those changes will only accelerate and worsen as China moves hellbent down its capitalist growth path. Ethical herbalists and those concerned solely about toxicity issues now must seriously consider these problems. It is quite a dilemma as the only alternative is to grow the herbs organically somewhere else. In the US, this would make the cost to your patients prohibitive, so the only option is to find some as yet uncontaminated third world farming country with cheap labor and set up chinese herb farms. Unfortunately many chinese herbs are wildcrafted and we don't even know how to cultivate them. I never thought I would write these words, but I think the only viable solution is to begin a concerted effort to replace the use of chinese herbs with substitute species from this country and other parts of the planet. Here is the link to the complete google search I did. This search was of scholarly journals, not scandalmongering websites, BTW.