Botanical Adulterants Program Educates Industry

AUSTIN, TexasThe American Botanical Council (ABC), the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP) and the University of Mississippis National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR) joined to tackle botanical adulteration in an education program designed to educate members of the herbal and dietary supplement industry. 

The ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Program will focus on both accidental adulteration that occurs as a result of poor quality-control procedures, as well as the intentional adulteration of plant-based products for financial gain. This industry-funded program aspires to serve as a self-regulatory mechanism for industry to address adulteration problems through education rather than federal regulation. 

The program will produce a series of white papers on botanical adulterants with references to published official and unofficial analytical methods for companies and/or third-party.  In the programs first published paper, A Brief History of Adulteration of Herbs, Spices, and Botanical Drugs," botanical expert Steven Foster provides a history of accidental and intentional adulteration of botanical ingredients spanning the past 2 millennia. The article appears in ABCs journal HerbalGram (issue number 92), which will be published in November 2011.

In addition to the series of white papers, The Adulterants Program will include contributions and consultations from independent third-party labs with experience in quality control and botanical identification issues. The Program also plans to make certain materials available to the public online. Updates will be featured on the organizations websites. 

The editorial committee, which will advise on all technical publications, includes expert scientists from various universities, government agencies and third-party analytical laboratories. The Program is also being supported by several leading trade associations in the dietary supplement industry: the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), the Natural Products Association (NPA), and the United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA).

There is a major problem in the global herb and dietary supplements industry in which there appears to be a persistent availability of adulterated herbs, herbal extracts, essential oils and other plant-derived dietary ingredients," said ABC founder and executive director Mark Blumenthal. For more on the efficacy of herbal products without adulteration, check out INSIDER's article on Blumenthal's presentation at the Natural Health Research Institute's (NHRI) conference.

According to AHP Executive Director and herbalist Roy Upton, With GMPs (good manufacturing practices) in full force, there are now a lot of companies realizing that the supply chain for ingredients that pass identity and quality GMP requirements has shrunk dramatically. Ingredients that used to readily pass manufacturer specifications are now failing when proper identity and quality tests are applied."

Professor Ikhlas Khan, Ph.D., assistant director of the University of Mississippis NCNPR and the director of the Centers botanical supplement authentication program, said, We are pleased to partner with ABC and AHP in this effort to raise awareness about adulteration of botanicals and the methods/principles that can minimize this problem." Khan is an expert on laboratory analytical methods to identify botanical materials. His Center has a cooperative agreement with FDA to identify botanical materials and develop appropriate analytical methods.