Pharmacovigilance for Herbal and Traditional Medicines Advances, Challenges and International Perspectives

Joanne Barnes is Associate Professor in Herbal Medicines in the School of Pharmacy, the University of Auckland, New Zealand. She initially trained as a pharmacist in the UK, completed a PhD in Pharmacy at the University of London and further study in pharmacovigilance and pharmacoepidemiology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. She has been working in the field of pharmacovigilance for herbal and traditional medicines for over 25 years, and is a leading researcher and author in this field. Her research includes identifying new signals of herbal safety concerns, developing innovative methods for safety monitoring for herbal medicines, and exploring the contributions that consumers and health professionals make to pharmacovigilance for these widely used products.

Dr Barnes was elected as a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (in 2003) and as a Fellow of the International Society of Pharmacovigilance (ISoP, in 2020). She was previously elected to the Executive Committee of ISoP (2006-09) and was the Foundation Lead of the ISoP special interest group on Herbal and Traditional Medicines from 2017 to 2022; she has led the Western Pacific chapter of ISoP since 2020. Dr Barnes is a member of the editorial board of several high-ranking academic journals in the fields of herbal medicines, drug safety, and pharmacy, and has co-authored several books on scientific aspects of herbal medicines. Dr Barnes serves/has served on several government advisory committees and other similar bodies in the UK and New Zealand as an expert on herbal medicines, particularly their safety, regulation and pharmacovigilance. In realising this unique book, Dr Barnes has drawn on her extensive international networks and research collaborations to include chapter contributions from a diverse range of academics, pharmacovigilance specialists, medicines’ regulators and others.