The German Commission E Monographs are a therapeutic guide to herbal medicine. There is an English translation by the American Botanical Council, with 380 monographs evaluating the safety and efficacy of herbs for licensed medical prescribing in Germany. The commission itself was formed in 1978, and no longer exists.

The Commission E Monographs were imported into the United States with considerable fanfare in 1998 by The American Botanical Council. They were unequivocally endorsed in a foreword by the late Varro Tyler, a well-known professor of pharmacognosy at Purdue University. Tyler states in his foreword that "...safety data were reviewed by the Commissioners according to a "doctrine of absolute proof" and efficacy according to a "doctrine of reasonable certainty."

As a result of this heavy promotion, Commission E is frequently confused with books on alternative medicine in the USA; but in fact, it is an administrative law book for German national regulation of herbs. As such, the book has attracted criticism for having a covert government agenda to assist commerce that is incompatible with science, medicine, and traditional, as well as experiential herbalist, systems of healing.

Criticism

The best known critic of Commission E is Jonathan Treasure, MNIMH, a UK licensed medical herbalist and author of numerous herbalism monographs

Treasure's lengthy review (31K) offers evidence in detail after detail that the book is not a work of science, medicine, or vitalist herbalism. Rather it is a book of German legal-medical regulations, since "In Germany, only those herbs with Commission E Approved status are (or will eventually become) legally available."

Quotations from Making Sense of Commission E

References