S.F. woman dies after drinking toxic herbal tea

Two people became seriously ill after drinking tea. The tea leaves were purchased from a Chinese Herbalist. Unfortunately one died.

Herbal teas are medicine. Know what is in the tea. Ask before you buy what each ingredient in the tea is. Take your smart phone, lap top, or tablet. Look up each ingredient in order to know what drugs you are ingesting. If the tea has more than one ingredient then you are ingesting more than one drug.

Know where the tea is purchased from. Some ingredients are lethal if not processed appropriately. The plant in the tea that caused the woman to die was aconite. It is lethal if not processed correctly. That is why it is not recommended for use internal or external. Processing is not regulated outside of the United States.

You need to know more things. How long should the tea steep? How much and how often do you drink it? Do you drink it on an empty or full stomach? Will it interact with over the counter medicines? Can it be taken with Dr. prescribed medication? Does it have side effects?

Consult a professional herbalist before drinking teas. Some herbs in tea bags are not meant to be ingested. They are placed on wounds. Herbalist now can go to school for training. Just like Dr. prescribed medication, research the drug to know what you are putting into your body

I watched news feeds and read information from the following links.

http://edzardernst.com/2014/08/how-safe-are-herbal-medicines/

https://www.drugs.com/npp/aconite.html

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Woman-56-dies-after-drinking-toxic-tea-from-SF-11015052.php

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-tea-poisoning-san-francisco-death-20170320-story.html

http://abc7news.com/health/woman-dies-after-drinking-toxic-tea-from-sf-chinatown/1809536/

http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/20/san-francisco-woman-dies-after-drinking-toxic-tea/

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/california/articles/2017-03-20/san-francisco-woman-dies-after-drinking-toxic-tea