ANALYSIS OF PACKAGING SUITABILITY, PACKAGE LEAFLETS AND ADVERTISING PIECES OF HERBAL MEDICINES

Abstract

Herbal medicines are products obtained by the exclusive use of active vegetal raw material, which efficacy and safety are validated through ethnopharmacological surveys, techno-scientific documentation in bibliography or indexed publications or by pre-clinical and clinical pharmacological and toxicological studies. Their quality is not only linked to their safety and efficacy, but to several issues that range from the aspects involved in the research to their use by the end user. Among them, the packaging plays a preponderant role, since it is also part of the product, serves to provide a certain presentation, protection, identification, information, acceptability and convenience of the product during the development, production, storage, transport, exhibition and use phases. Thus, the packaging represents an object of direct contact between the product and the user, so their technical, aesthetic and informative functions must comply with current legislation and ethical and moral concepts. The objective of this work is to evaluate the application of the Brazilian legislation for herbal medicines regarding the packaging and labelling through of herbal medicines in the Brazilian market and advertising pieces related to the sale of herbal products, comparing the results obtained with those of previous studies. It is a field research, with the objective of evaluating 10 herbal medicines from different drugstores in the city of Teresina-PI and 20 advertising pieces for the analysis. It was concluded that the legislation in course was more exercised compared to the results obtained in previous studies.