Page 42 - Ethical Guidelines for Conducting Research Studies Involving Human Subjects
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for designing and evaluating the study. as co-investigators/ collaborators/
                          members of the expert group is desirable for designing and evaluating the
                          study.

                                 10.5.1 Special Concerns

                                 The AU drugs include herbal and herbo-mineral formulations. The
                                 herbal products can belong to one of the three categories:

                                 1.      From  the  ancient  Ayurveda,  Unani  literature,  lot  of
                                 information about the use of a plant or its extract, metals, minerals
                                 and  animal  products  have  known  or  the  plant  may  actually  be
                                 regularly used by physicians of the traditional systems of medicine
                                 for a number of years and the substance is to be clinically evaluated
                                 for  same  indication  for  which  it  is  being  used  or  as  has  been
                                 described in the texts.

                                 2.      When  the  therapeutic  effect  not  originally  described  in  the
                                 texts  of  traditional  systems,  in  case  of  an  extract  of  a  plant  or  a
                                 compound  isolated  from  the  plant  and  any  compound  formulation
                                 having plants, metals, minerals and animal products as ingredients
                                 has  to  be  clinically  evaluated    or,  the  method  of  preparation  is
                                 different,  or  it  was  not  originally  used  for  a  certain  indication  by
                                 practitioners in that field, it has to be treated as a new substance or
                                 new chemical entity (NCE) and the same type of acute,  sub acute
                                 and chronic toxicity data will have to be generated as required by
                                 the regulatory authority for synthetic products before it is cleared
                                 for clinical evaluation.

                                 3.      An  extract  or  a  compound  isolated  from  a  plant  and  any
                                 compound formulation having plants, metals, minerals and animal
                                 products as ingredients which has never been in use before and has
                                 not ever been mentioned in ancient literature, should be treated as
                                 a  new  drug,  and  therefore,  should  undergo  all  regulatory
                                 requirements before being evaluated clinically.

                                 During  incorporation  with  GMP  rules  for  standardization,  it  is
                                 important  that  plants  and  AU  remedies  currently  in  use  or
                                 mentioned  in  literature  of  recognized  Traditional  System  of
                                 Medicine is prepared strictly in the same way as described in the
                                 literature. .It is a challenging task for modern scientists and drug
                                 controller to justify the beneficial effects of stored formulations, as
                                 traditional remedies have short life, increasing their  stability and
                                 shelf life, and batch to batch variation.
                                 It  is  important  that  plants  and  AU  remedies  currently  in  use  or
                                 mentioned  in  literature  of  recognized  Traditional  System  of




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