August 18, 2007 The Economist highlights the efforts of the Golden Triangle Partnership and their work in India to conduct clinical trials on herbal treatments in India: Most Indian herbal remedies are based on the Ayurvedic system of medicine, although Tamil-based Siddha and Unani, which has Persian roots, are also used extensively. Proving their worth […]
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GMP Gems
from the U.S. cGMPs for Dietary Supplements by James Prochnow The CGMPs for dietary supplements do not apply to dietary ingredient manufacturers, labelers, packers and those who hold dietary ingredients unless and only if a dietary ingredient is sold in bulk and then repackaged and, without further processing, is sold as a single component dietary […]
Proposed Supplement Good Manufacturing Practices
Final Rule on Dietary Supplement cGMP Released from AHPA (June 22, 2007) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has posted its final rule on current good manufacturing practice (cGMP) for dietary supplements at its website and will soon publish the rule in the Federal Register. The agency has simultaneously posted a related interim […]
Grapefruit Seed Extract
Grapefruit Seed Extract is promoted as a safe, effective antimicrobial for internal use and natural preservative for body care products. One problem. It doesn’t work. Oh, two problems. If it does work, it’s because it’s spiked with synthetic preservatives. Several studies have now found one or more of several synthetics, none of which is approved […]
Adverse Event Reporting
Industry experts are proclaiming victory in getting a law passed that requires dietary supplement (and OTC drug) manufacturers to report all serious “adverse events” to their products to the FDA. With the obvious bias in the media against supplements, each reported (but not proven) “reaction” will likely be used to hammer dietary supplements.
Who Are These Guys?
The “Organic Consumer’s Association” comes on like a champion of ethics in organics, but really, aren’t these pretty extreme positions? OCA has joined the shrill, pharma-sponsored attacks on dietary supplements.
Pandering to FDA
What’s up with the supplement industry associations rolling over for FDA on ephedra? When the FDA announced the ban on ephedra, industry ‘thought leaders’ couldn’t jump fast enough to say what a wonderful thing it was. The industry line is that the FDA banning a plant that’s been in use for over 5,000 years, based on shoddy science and media spin “proves that DSHEA works.”