Starting in May 2011 all traditional herbal medicinal products (THMPS), will require a marketing authorisation or certificate of traditional-use registration before being placed on the EU or Irish market. Any herbal medicinal products already on the market that have not received or applied for registration by the end of April 2011, will be considered unlicensed and will have to be removed from sale.

A research team headed by Dr David G. Bailey, a professor of clinical pharmacology at the University of Western Ontario, has discovered that consuming certain medications with certain fruit juices can increase or decrease their effectiveness.

Fruit juices like grapefruit, orange and apple juice, contain substances that reduce the effectiveness of common drugs, used to treat infections, allergy, transplant rejection, cancer, and high blood pressure.