There is an urgent need to solve the "no standard to follow" in the supervision of the production of traditional Chinese medicine.

The reporter recently received a proposal entitled "suggestions on strengthening the quality Management of traditional Chinese Medicinal Materials" by Wang Liping, member of the Chinese people's political Consultative Conference in Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province. According to the proposal, in recent years, frequently reported safety incidents of traditional Chinese medicine are worrying, and the failure to pass the quality of traditional Chinese medicine is one of the most important factors leading to the safety of traditional Chinese medicine.

According to the data cited in the proposal, the failure rate of prepared pieces of traditional Chinese medicine has always been higher than that of western medicine. According to the survey of adverse drug reactions, traditional Chinese medicine accounted for 10% in 2003, but in 2013, the proportion rose to 17.3%. Wang Liping pointed out that there are four major problems in the current Chinese medicine market: first, there are an increasing number of counterfeits and substitutes, and there are phenomena such as inferior quality, adulteration, and mixed use of different varieties; second, pesticide residues and heavy metal pollution in Chinese medicinal materials are serious; at the same time, non-standard processing seriously affects clinical efficacy; finally, improper transportation and storage leads to mildew and pollution.

The reporter then interviewed Wang Jianwei, director of the quality Supervision Department of the Zhejiang Provincial Department of Agriculture, on this issue. He believes that the most prominent problem in the current quality and safety supervision of traditional Chinese medicine is that both producers and regulators have fallen into the awkward situation of "no standards to follow."

Wang Jianwei said: at present, the prevention and control of diseases and insect pests in the production of Chinese medicinal materials mainly depends on chemical control, but at the national level, whether it includes technical requirements such as site selection and planting, fertilizer and water management, pest control, harvesting and processing, or input requirements, there is a lack of production standards specifically for traditional Chinese medicinal materials, and there are almost no registered pesticides for Chinese medicinal materials. This leads to illegal drug use, drug abuse, misuse and other phenomena occur from time to time.

Not only the producers, but also the professional testing institutions and relevant regulatory departments have fallen into the awkward position of "no standard to follow" in the actual operation because of the lack of testing methods and standards for traditional Chinese medicine. Wang Jianwei said: at present, there is a lack of clear laws, regulations, and standards in all aspects of the production, processing, and storage of traditional Chinese medicine, and whether it is agricultural products or traditional Chinese medicine is inconsistent and ambiguous, resulting in a vacuum among various regulatory departments.

This situation has become a common phenomenon in the whole country, which is undoubtedly disadvantageous to the sustained and healthy development of traditional Chinese medicine. Zhejiang is one of the important producing areas of traditional Chinese medicine in China. in recent years, the province has made a series of explorations on disease and pest control, drug use management and quality control of traditional Chinese medicine. Such as: improve the level of organization and scale of traditional Chinese medicine production, set up Chinese medicine association, formulate, update and improve the technical operation rules of traditional Chinese medicine production, speed up the registration of pesticides and the formulation of pesticide residue standards, and so on.

Not only that, at the county level, Zhejiang also has a lot of exploration. For example, Panan County set up a traditional Chinese medicine association composed of large herbal medicine operators, growers, relevant managers and scientific and technological personnel of processing enterprises in 2002. In the past two years, in view of the lack of national standards or industry standards for the quality and safety indicators of Chinese medicinal materials, it is specially led by the association to formulate the alliance standards of "Pan Wuwei" and establish a standardized demonstration base to achieve industry self-discipline. This exploration has achieved good results and is of great help in promoting the development of local industries.

However, it has to be admitted that Pan'an 's exploration is limited to a certain area, and there are still many obstacles and difficulties in concrete implementation. Wang Jianwei believes that in order to solve the problems existing in the production and supervision of traditional Chinese medicine, it still depends on the national level and relevant departments to issue specific, clear, and perfect standards, regulations and policies. Only by doing a good job in the top-level design, can various places be combined with the actual situation to better promote the sustained and healthy development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry.