Study finds herbalists at higher urinary cancer risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – A small new study from Taiwan links a widely banned substance traditionally used in Chinese medicine to an elevated risk for kidney and bladder cancers among professional herbalists. Herbs, such as fang chi, that contain the plant-derived aristolochic acid, are known to cause cancer as well as kidney failure, and the current study suggests that working with these herbs raised urinary cancer rates among Taiwanese herbalists who handled fang chi before its ban in 2003. …