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Herbal drugs have increasingly been used worldwide during the last few decades as evidenced by rapidly growing global and national markets of herbal drugs. According to WHO estimates, the present demand for medicinal plants is about US $14 billion a year and by the year 2050 it would be about US $ 5 trillion.  Now people rely more on herbal drugs because of high prices and harmful side effects of synthetic drugs, and this trend is growing, not only in developing countries but in developed countries too. Unfortunately, the number of reports of people experiencing negative effects, caused by the use of herbal drugs, has also been increasing. There may be various reasons for such problems, like one of the major causes of adverse effects is directly linked to the poor quality of herbal medicines. Therefore, it has been recognized that insufficient attention was being paid to the quality assurance and control of herbal medicines. Although WHO has developed guidelines for the quality control of herbal drugs which provide a detailed description of the techniques and measures required for the appropriate cultivation and collection of medicinal plants. Despite such guidelines, there is still a lacuna between this available knowledge and implementation, because farmers and other relevant persons like producers, handlers and processors of herbal drugs are not much aware of WHO’s guidelines and they continue their work as before without any quality control measures which results in inferior quality of herbal drugs with lots of contaminants like heavy metals, pesticides and microbes. Therefore, the training for farmers and other relevant persons is an important measure to be taken to ensure good quality of raw herbal drugs.

Ricin is a potent biological toxin that is derived from castor beans. Its mechanism of action in the body is inhibition of protein synthesis. Clinical manifestations are dependent on the route of exposure. Ingestion of ricin typically leads to profuse vomiting and diarrhea followed by multisystem organ failure and possibly death within 36 to 72 hours of exposure. Inhalation of ricin typically leads to respiratory distress, fever, and cough followed by the development of pulmonary edema, hypotension, respiratory failure, and possibly death within 36 to 72 hours.

The amount and route of the exposure to ricin and the premorbid condition of the person exposed will contribute to the time of onset and the severity of illness. For example, the inhalation of ricin would be expected to lead to a quicker onset of poisoning and to cause a more rapid progression of poisoning compared with the ingestion of ricin, given the same exposure amount.

A toxic contaminants study was performed in the lower Rio Grande Valley in February, 1994. The purpose was to screen selected sites for the occurrence and impact of toxic chemicals.

A total of eight stations were sampled, including two on the Rio Grande, two on the Arroyo Colorado, one on the North Floodway, one at Brazos Santiago Pass, one in San Martin Lake, and one in the Gulf of Mexico. The scope of evaluation included determinations of toxic chemical concentrations in water (8 sites), sediment (7 sites), and fish tissue (8 sites); toxicity testing of water (8 sites) and sediment (7 sites); and biosurvey of fish and benthic macro invertebrate communities (4 sites).

A total of 26 toxic chemicals were detected, 17 of which exceeded screening level concentrations. Four toxicants exceeded screening levels in water, one in sediment, and 15 in tissue. In the toxicity tests, significant adverse effects occurred in seven of 60 determinations, involving water samples from stations 4 (Brazos Santiago Pass), 6 (Arroyo Colorado near the Port of Harlingen), and 7 (Arroyo Colorado near the mouth), and water and sediment samples from station 8 (North Floodway near the mouth). Fish and benthic macroinvertebrate communities generally were healthy, and the degree of biotic integrity indicated that if toxic impacts were occurring, the effects were relatively slight. No instances of severe aquatic life use impairment were observed during the study period.

Pollution created by several active and abandoned Milwaukee County industries may be contributing to the ill health of thousands of county residents, according to a government report.The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report indicates that it may be exposure to PCBs, lead, mercury and other industrially produced toxins in Milwaukee County that is contributing to the county's higher-than-average rates of infant mortality, low birth weight, premature births and deaths from colon cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke.The report, which was leaked last week by an investigative watchdog group, was supposed to be released in July. The International Joint Commission, an independent panel that advises the U.S. and Canadian governments on Great Lakes issues, requested the report in 2001.According to a CDC spokesman, the July release was blocked because of concerns about some of the methods used in the report.