October 2005

AHPA asks FDA, NCCAM to portray supplements honestly

In two separate communications dated October 4, 2005, the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) challenged both the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) to tell the truth and to correct past misstatements about dietary supplements and echinacea products, respectively.

In a letter to the new acting FDA commissioner, Andrew von Eschenbach, MD, AHPA President Michael McGuffin sought assurances that when the final rule for current good manufacturing practice (GMP) is published, FDA will not repeat the errors and misrepresentations that occurred when the proposed rule was published in March 2003 and about which AHPA complained at the time.

The same concern for accurate information from the federal government led to the separate communication to NCCAM’s director, Stephen Straus, MD. In a discussion of a recently published study on low-dose Echinacea angustifolia root preparations, the NCCAM Web site includes a criticism of herbal products, stating “what’s on the label may not always be what’s in the bottle.”

In addition, numerous news articles about this study cited Straus as defending the low dosage used in the study as the one “most often used by consumers,” and as concluding, “We’ve got to stop attributing any efficacy to echinacea.”

In its letter, AHPA asked that the cited criticism “be removed from the NCCAM Web site immediately,” and that all media outlets that carried Straus’ statements be requested to “issue corrections to these statements.”

The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) is a national trade association devoted solely to herbal issues.

Source: American Herbal Products Association, www.ahpa.org

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