Botanical Adulterants Program endorsed by four international health professional groups
The program is a collaboration of the American Botanical Council, the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia, and the National Center for Natural Products Research at the University of Mississippi.
The program is supported by over 140 companies, independent laboratories, schools and institutes of natural medicine, media, law firms, and trade associations, including this publication.
The four health professional groups that have now added their endorsement of the program collectively represent hundreds of thousands of integrative health practitioners across the United States and Ireland.
“Although much of the Program is focused on educating members of industry about the confirmed cases of adulteration of herbs, extracts, and other botanical materials, we are also attempting to help educate other stakeholders in the domain of herbal medicine, particularly healthcare providers who recommend and/or utilize botanical preparations in their clinical practice,” said Mark Blumenthal, ABC Founder and Executive Director.
“We are most grateful to these organizations of healthcare providers for their expression of support for the Botanical Adulterants Program.”
Groups
AIHM is a professional group that brings together many different licensed integrative health practitioners, including family doctors, acupuncturists, nurses, psychologists, and doctors of oriental medicine, and advocates for affordability and accessibility for patients.
“We support [the Program’s] mission to preserve botanical purity, and thank you for the effort that the [Program] has made to expose the challenges associated with adulterated herbs in commerce around the world. We will be proud to add our name to [the] growing list of underwriters, endorsers, and supporters,” wrote Nancy Sudak, MD, AIHM Executive Director in a letter dated January 21, 2015.
IHPC, founded in 2003, advocates for an integrative healthcare system with equal access to a full range of health-oriented, person-centered, regulated healthcare professionals. IHPC represents more than 400,000 licensed professionals and, by extension, millions of patients, regarding the advancement of integrative health in the United States.
The American Herbalists Guild promotes the profession of clinical herbalism and access to herbal medicine, and its members range from those who practice traditional and indigenous herbalism to modern clinical phytotherapy.
AHG Executive Director Mimi Hernandez, MS, RH(AHG), confirming the endorsement, wrote: “The adulteration of herbal medicines throughout history has had a deep impact on the integrity of professional herbalists and I am certain that our membership will benefit from the important educational aspects of the Program as well as the confidence attributed to a high-quality supply chain of herbal medicines.”
The IRH is a professional association for traditional herbalists in Ireland. “The IRH [supports] the Botanical Adulterants Program because we strongly believe in the safety and efficacy of the herbs we use in clinical practice,” wrote Danny O’Rawe, ND, IRH Vice President. “As an accountable professional organization for herbalists in Ireland of all traditions, part of our role is to promote best practice throughout the herbal sector and we have no hesitation in supporting this important initiative to keep the herb chain free of adulteration and contamination for the good of ourselves and future generations.”
