Health Minister Sussan Ley has promised to act on concerns about the number of people needing organ transplants after taking herbal supplements.

Data obtained from national organ donation registries shows that since 2011 three liver transplants and three kidney transplants have been given to people who got sick after taking some kind of herbal supplement.

Ms Ley said she wanted to reassure people she was well aware of the issue and would do something about the concerns.

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“I’m going to talk to the Therapeutic Goods Administration, but they’re already across this,” he said.

“They’re already noting carefully what appears to be a cause and effect we need to make sure that cause and effect is indeed present.

“There is a process by which they can evaluate what’s already happened with an adverse reaction to a person and take that into account when it comes to delisting of, for example, a supplement in the future.

“I will be talking to the [regulator] and I know they are already on the case, making sure that if there are ingredients in herbal remedies that are doing harm that it be recognised and addressed at the earliest possible opportunity.”

She said it would be up to the Therapeutic Goods Administration as to whether there were warnings put on supplements with green tea extract.

“It shouldn’t be something we do in an ad hoc manner but it should be something we do in keeping with our existing systems,” Ms Ley said.

“Understanding how ingredients react, what patient experiences there are, investigating those adverse reactions and then making for example the warnings, the delistings, the clarifications we may need to.

“This is happening, it’s happening as fast as possible.”

It comes after West Australian man Matthew Whitby spoke to the ABC after losing his liver – most likely as a result of taking a protein powder with green tea extract and a supplement containing garcinia cambogia.

Liver transplant specialist Dr Nick Shackel from Sydney’s Royal Prince Alfred Hospital said he had dealt with multiple cases of liver failure and transplants associated with herbal supplements.

“We simply represent a tip on an iceberg of disease,” he said.

Dr Shackel, who is also a representative of Transplant Australia, said there were only a limited number of organs available to transplant.

“Given we always have deaths on the waiting list and we have patients who can’t be transplanted simply because we don’t have enough organs, we’d clearly like these organs to go to people where there’s unavoidable causes of liver failure.”

Figures suggest there are currently about 1,200 people waiting for a liver or kidney transplant in Australia.

TGA to ‘obtain more information’

Steve Scarff from the Australian Self Medication Industry said it was up to the federal government to determine whether warnings or more regulations were needed.

“Australia already has one of the most rigorous regulatory systems in the world for complementary medicines,” Mr Scarff said.

Following inquiries from the ABC, the Therapeutic Goods Administration said it would liaise with organ donation registries to “obtain more information” and decide on any regulatory action.

“This action could potentially include reducing the allowable limits of particular herbal extracts in complementary medicines,” she said.

–ABC