What is my risk from lead I might get by taking Chinese herbs?
A. The risk is unknown. The lead in herb products is not more or less risky than lead found in the American diet, which is reported to provide about 15–25 ug of lead per day or more (the lead comes mainly from plant foods); just a decade or two ago, that figure was ten times higher and in the 1970s it was twenty times higher. There is no doubt that very high lead exposure can be harmful, especially to young children, but these low levels of lead as found in foods and herbs are difficult to analyze in terms of either short term or long term risk. At 9 tablets per day of Seven Forests formulas, with an average value of 0.8 ppm, the amount of lead intake would be about 5 ug of lead in a day. Though there is no means by which one can assure that 5 ug of lead would be “safe,” it is a quantity consistent with ordinary daily dietary exposure (see appendix, below, for sample of food analysis). Pregnant women ought to minimize their exposure to lead from all sources, since the developing fetus
