**8. Standardization and regulation**

The therapeutic benefits of HM in relation to general healthcare will continue to expand and attract popularity even with increased sophistication of the conventional healthcare systems as associated with genetic engineering and medical biotechnology. In many societies where HM constitutes an integral part of the healthcare system, the scheme to integrate it into the primary healthcare system is still farfetched because of matters that pattern to issues of standardization, quality control and regulation.

The traditional method used for monitoring and assuring quality of HM consists mainly of organoleptic evaluations. These are critically simple and subjective thus not compatible with the modern concept of quality control. In many countries, mandatory regulation of HM now requires scientific-based evaluations that employ high-tech analytical techniques to monitor and control the quality of products [34, 35]. At present, no official techniques or standards are available for the universal evaluation of HM. Many manufacturers of herbal products are either adopting tests and parameters as well as limits used for pharmaceutical drugs or selfdetermined in-process parameters and limits for their quality control evaluations. Though, these are good shots towards an effective standardization and quality control. In most cases, nevertheless, the techniques are not officially validated according to ISO standards, which is critical for universal acceptance. Standardization of HM using official techniques though doable will be a herculean task because of the complex nature of HMs.

However, the regulation of HM in many countries is less rigorous when compared to those of pharmaceutical drugs. The issues of therapeutic efficacy, safety, or quality are often not strictly regulated. In many of these countries, they are promoted as natural and harmless [36].
