| Summary: | 碩士 === 東吳大學 === 法律學系 === 93 === The Pharmaceutical Law, Article 69 stated: “Products not specified as pharmaceutical products by this Law may not be marked or advertised as being medically effective. Also, Food Sanitation Law, Article 19 said:
Foods shall not be so labeled, promoted or advertised as having medical efficacy.
The term “Drugs” was defined in Pharmaceutical Law, Article 6. According to the above laws, our country has two laws regulating drugs and food separately. If one product is categorized as food in legal aspect, it can not proclaim to have medical efficacy, thus is non-drug.
This practice greatly contradicts the public belief that foods and drugs are of the same origin. The notable example is decoction, in which medicinal herb is infused in the soup with food and claiming certain efficacy. With this concept, foods and the traditional Chinese herbs (drugs), cannot be regulated under two separate laws. This contradiction was showed in an announcement from Department of Health, Executive Yuan, in which a list of over 100 types of common food were categorized as products that can be used as traditional medicine(drugs).
In this paper, I will present from a pharmaceutical view point, using the concept of efficacy, to discuss the definition of Chinese herbal product, especially its use in decoction/food combination . The current dual tracts of laws regulating food and drug and the fallacies pertained to the laws will be discussed. I will also make suggestion for possible implementation.
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