‘Don’t reinvent the wheel’: Industry & government should work together on improving existing DSLD, says AHPA

09-Nov-2015 - Last updated on 09-Nov-2015 at 16:19 GMT

Image © iStockPhoto / monticelllo

The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) Board of Trustees has opposed the establishment of a mandatory requirement for dietary supplements to be registered with the FDA as a stand-alone approach to improving informed consumer access to a wide variety of safe dietary supplement products.

"The existing Dietary Supplement Label Database is an effective platform to provide consumers with the same type of information that would be provided by mandatory product registration," said AHPA President Michael McGuffin. "Before reinventing the wheel by creating another registration system, the supplement industry and federal government should work to improve this existing resource to help inform consumers."

DSLD

Speaking with NutraIngredients-USA at SupplySide West 2015, McGuffin told us: “AHPA took a position in the last year to recommend our members submit their labels to the already existing Dietary Supplement Label Database that was created through a joint effort by the Office of Dietary Supplements and the National Library of Medicine. We think that accomplishes the same thing as the product registration.

“They estimate that about 50,000 supplement labels are already listed in that database, and we’re encouraging the further development of that. I don’t know why we would shift that to a mandatory system under the FDA when we already have a program that is working well.”

To watch that full video interview, please click HERE.

The DSLD is a free resource that captures all information present on dietary supplement labels as provided by the seller, including contents, ingredient amounts, and any health-related product statements, claims, and cautions. It is expected to grow rapidly over the next three years to include most of the estimated more than 75,000 dietary supplement products.

Call for comments

As we reported last week, the ODS is seeking input from the dietary supplement industry, along with academic researchers, government agencies, and other interested parties, including consumers, on features and functionality improvements to make the DSLD a more useful tool.

“This call for comments by ODS presents an opportunity to make improvements to this existing database to best assist consumers to understand the supplement marketplace,”said McGuffin.

Comments must be submitted to BQF@avu.tbi by November 27 to be considered by a federal stakeholder panel for the DSLD.