Tension Looming over License Test for `Herbal Pharmacists'

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Tension is brewing again between doctors practicing Oriental medicine and pharmacists over the qualifications needed for the license test for``herbal pharmacists.''

The controversy over the qualifications emerged ahead of the license test for pharmacists exclusively dispensing herbal drugs, which is scheduled for next February.

A group of Oriental medicine doctors claimed that only students majoring in newly-introduced ``herbal pharmaceutics'' are allowed to apply for the license test, saying that those majoring in Western pharmaceutics are not qualified for the license.

Oriental medical doctors clashed head-on with pharmacists in 1994 in a struggle to get …