Nonprofit Collaboration Addresses Adulteration of Botanical Dietary Ingredients

Three leading nonprofit organizations—the American Botanical Council (ABC), the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP), and the University of Mississippi's National Center for Natural Products Research (NCNPR)—have initiated a large-scale program to educate members of the herbal and dietary supplement industry about ingredient and product adulteration.

Responsible parties in the herbal and dietary supplement community have become increasingly concerned about the suspected and confirmed practice of adulteration of numerous ingredients. The existence of adulteration raises questions about the identity and quality of some popular herbal ingredients sold in dietary supplements in the United States and in other botanical products (e.g., medicines, cosmetics, etc.) in global markets.

Adulteration of botanical ingredients can be accidental or deliberate. 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 ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Program is a long-term, multi-party coalition of herb quality and identity experts in university research groups, third-party analytical laboratories, government agencies, trade associations, and industry companies to examine the extent of suspected adulteration of herbal materials, particularly adulteration that is economically motived. The intention is to confirm the extent of adulteration in the United States and global markets, determine which official or unofficial analytical methods are currently available to help detect the presence (or absence) of a suspected or known adulterant, and to provide comment and guidance on the relative strengths and/or weaknesses of differing analytical methods. The results of this investigation will be published in a series of reports (white papers) and will be made available on the ABC website.

HerbalGram: The Role of Chemical Reference Standards as Analytical Tools in the Quality Assessment of Botanical Materials– A European Perspective

HerbalGram: Quality Control in Herbal Preparations: Using Botanical Reference Standards for Proper Identification

HerbalGram: Issues of Quality: Analyzing Herbal Materials and the Current Status of Methods Validation

Underwriters and Supporters of the
ABC-AHP-NCNPR
Botanical Adulterants Program*

Trade Associations
Consumer Healthcare Products
    Association
Council for Responsible Nutrition
Natural Products Association
United Natural Products Alliance

Nonprofit/Professional Associations
American Association of 
   Naturopathic Physicians
Council of Colleges of Acupuncture
    and Oriental Medicine

Colleges/Universities
Bastyr University
Boucher Institute of Naturopathic
   Medicine
National College of Natural Medicine
Southwest College of Naturopathic
    Medicine
University of Bridgeport College of
   Naturopathic Medicine

Third-Party Analytical Laboratories
Alkemists Laboratories
Bent Creek Institute
British Columbia Institute of
  Technology
ChromaDex
Covance Laboratories
Eurofins
Flora Research Labs
NSF International
Spectrix Labs
Tampa Bay Analytical

Media
Delicious Living
Engredea
Functional Ingredients
Integrator Blog
Natural Foods Merchandiser
Natural Products INSIDER
New Hope 360.com
Nutraceuticals World
NutraingredientsUSA.com
Nutritional Outlook
Nutrition Business Journal
Nutrition Industry Executive
Vitamin Retailer
Whole Foods Magazine

Law Firms
Amin Talati, LLC
Greenberg Traurig, LLP (James
    Prochnow)
Law Office of Holly Bayne, P.C.

Contract Research Organizations
KGK Synergize
Medicus Research

 *By acknowledging the generous support of these companies and organizations, ABC, AHP, and NCNPR are not endorsing any ingredients or products that may be produced or marketed by them.