“University of Adelaide professor of pathology Roger Byard, who was speaking at a conference in Perth said doctors and police officers investigating suspicious deaths should routinely check for herbal toxicity as well as the presence of drugs. He presented research at the Australasian Society of Clinical and Experimental Pharmacologists and Toxicologists annual meeting and called for a new research area to be set up in forensic herbal toxicology. Professor Byard said herbal medicines had mostly come from complex Chinese and Indian medical traditions. While many were effective there was now a problem with traditional village-based activities expanding into a global market, affecting the quality, composition and purity of supplies. He was aware of a recent case of a young man who died after injecting himself with what he thought was the drug ecstasy. But the dealer had substituted it with the Chinese herbal medicine, chan su, which contains venom from the skin of toads.” Australian news report (5th December 2011)