By Michael McGuffin, president, American Herbal Products Association
The herbal industry continued to evolve in 2017 to meet the steadily increasing demand for high quality botanical ingredients in an array of consumer goods from teas and health supplements to personal care products and Traditional Chinese Medicine.
Three members of Congress have sent a letter to the US Food and Drug Administration requesting specifics on how enforcement funds are allocated. The three lawmakers are among those the Council for Responsible Nutrition has worked closely with on regulatory...
A bill now before the US House of Representatives that seeks to clarify the boundaries of Multi Level Marketing operations is imperfect but better than the status quo, said an attorney familiar with the sector.
'Live cultures are not all probiotic, although all probiotics are live cultures...'
US consumers are increasingly interested in the relationship between intestinal bacteria and overall health, says CHR Hansen, but there is some confusion about which foods and beverages contain probiotics: live microorganisms that, when administered in...
Dietary supplements took another hit in the mainstream press with an article in The New York Times that highlights supplements that claim to help treat opiod addiction. Trade organizations concurred the practice is illegal, while rueing the article’s...
Two new options by UL and the Hamacher Resource Group (HRG) offer dietary supplement manufacturers an efficient route to upload product labels to the industry-wide, self-regulatory product label registry.
A recent commentary published by three experts in the dietary supplement industry cautions against drawing big conclusions from aggregate data from poison control centers.
Dr Dan Fabricant, PhD, executive director of the Natural Products Association, has continued his forceful advocacy of existing compliant paths to market for CBDs in an appearance on The Doctors TV show.
The funding arm of the Council for Responsible Nutrition has renewed its support for the NAD dietary supplement advertising review program for an additional three years.
Products containing lithium orotate—a salt of a mineral that has been used to treat psychiatric disorders—have been the subject of two Health Canada warnings this year. Yet similar products are freely for sale south of the border, and don’t seem to be...
Will compiling an official list of Old Dietary Ingredients ultimately be worth the effort? Maybe, but the resulting list must be expansive rather than restrictive to be of much use, most stakeholders agree.
Amarin Pharmaceuticals Inc. has appealed the decision by the US International Trade Commission not to hear its case in which it had sought to prevent the import of some omega-3 dietary supplements. The company also filed a technical writ to try to force...
Network marketing company Nature's Sunshine posted strong revenue growth in its third quarter by starting to capitalize on its long-awaited entry into the Chinese market, and putting a software problem to bed.
A dietary supplement company that has received a previous warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration has agreed to a $3.7 million fine to settle a case brought by the Federal Trade Commission and the State of Maine for making over the top disease...
A new study conducted by anti doping researchers has found that products containing SARMs are readily available online and that many of the products contain additional undeclared, unapproved drugs.
The Natural Algae Astaxanthin Association has filed a citizen’s petition that seeks regulatory action by FDA against a synthetic form of astaxanthin marketed by Cardax.
Getting clever with product names can be an effective marketing strategy. It can also get a company in trouble with regulators, as a recent warning letter shows.
Hailed by experts as ‘needed’ and ‘significant’, the US Food and Drug Administration has issued draft guidance on best practices to follow when convening a panel of experts to evaluate whether a substance is “generally recognized as safe” (GRAS).
The American Kratom Association has filed a formal demand for a retraction of FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb’s warning about the botanical. But an expert in adverse event reporting says new data available to FDA may mean the agency has evidence to support...
FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has warned about the ‘deadly risks’ associated with kratom and has said the agency “must use its authority to protect the public from addictive substances like kratom.”
Probiotics and prebiotics—the names themselves are a claim, something that companies need always to be aware of. This is one of the topics that will be covered in tomorrow’s Online Digest Health Conference sponsored by NutraIngredients-USA.
What’s the latest evidence for the effects of probiotics? What about prebiotics? What are the current market trends? The answers to these and other questions can be heard in an online conference scheduled for this Wednesday.
The dietary supplement industry’s leading trade associations and the US Anti-Doping Agency have voiced their support of the recent FDA actions to protect consumers from body-building products containing Selective Androgen Receptor Modulators (SARMs) illegally...
The federal government has seized more than $3 million from Hi Tech Pharmaceuticals CEO Jared Wheat as part of its money laundering and mail fraud case against the executive and the dietary supplement company he controls.
The Natural Products Association has released a book compiling a list of pre-DSHEA (old) dietary ingredients to provide a “useful regulatory guidepost” for industry and regulators.
From market sizing to the need for global probiotics standards at Codex, the International Probiotic Association’s second DC workshop in collaboration with the US Pharmacopeia succeeded in providing a venue for sharing knowledge and expertise.
The Food and Drug Administration’s attitude that CBD does not belong in dietary supplements seems to have hardened, judging by the wording of four warning letters issued this week.
The Food and Drug Administration has issued a consumer warning against supplement-like body building products that contain SARMs, or selective androgen receptor modulators.
The US International Trade Commission has decided not to hear a case in which the fish oil drug maker Amarin sought to prevent the import of some omega-3 dietary supplements.
A dietary supplement manufacturer in Long Island, NY has been shut down by the Food and Drug Administration after numerous and repeated violations of GMP standards and labeling laws.
A presentation yesterday at a meeting of liver injury specialists presented preliminary research that claims that a majority of dietary supplements collected when patients seek treatment are mislabeled.
A Massachusetts legislator’s attempt to restrict the sale of some dietary supplements seems doomed to fail in its latest iteration, but continued vigilance is needed, according to the head of the Natural Products Association.
Members of the Council for Responsible Nutrition must demonstrate a “unified commitment” to the Supplement OWL, with the organization’s Board of Directors indicating that all members must be substantially compliant by the beginning of the year.
California-based supplement maker Custompax must stop selling products until it comes to compliance with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA)’s dietary supplement manufacturing regulations, according to a press release by the federal agency.
The legal troubles of Hi Tech Pharmaceutical CEO Jared Wheat continue to worsen with the unveiling of a judgement against him in federal court that has imposed sanctions of more than $40 million.
A nascent organic herbal cooperative model in Vermont offers the promise of increasing domestic herbal ingredient sources. The founders say they have been pleasantly surprised that demand for these higher priced materials has consistently outstripped...
FDA’s undertaking to create a master list of ‘old dietary ingredients’ that could be sold legally in dietary supplements without first going through the new dietary ingredient notification process likely will fall flat, despite the agency’s best intentions,...
NPA's Dr Daniel Fabricant recaps state of industry at SupplySide West 2017
From finalizing an NDI list to making dietary supplements eligible in welfare programs, Dr Daniel Fabricant of the National Products Association shared his take on the state of the dietary supplements industry.
A recent warning letter to a Colorado dietary supplement company illustrates the hot water companies can get themselves into when starting business operations without adequate counsel.
Young Living, a multilevel marketing company that sells products based on essential oils, has entered into a plea agreement for illegally trading in oils from endangered species. The company will pay fines totaling $760,000, the Justice Department announced...
The American Botanical Council is continuing to shed light on the issue of the adulteration of botanical ingredients by making available a book chapter on the adulteration of essential oils. This comes on the heels of the publication of an ABC bulletin...
FDA is pushing back the compliance dates for most agricultural water testing standards outlined in the Food Safety Modernization Act’s Produce Safety Rule to “simplify our approach to make compliance less burdensome and less costly, while still being...
Transparency is becoming more of a watchword for the industry, says Mark Blumenthal of the American Botanical Council. Whether it's a word to live by or to hide behind is the question, he said.
A ruling by the US Patent and Trademark Office has reignited the krill wars, with Norwegian company Rimfrost AS claiming the ruling could invalidate all of the claims relating to two patents held by rival Aker BioMarine AS.
Creatine nitrate has reportedly been accepted as a new dietary ingredient by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), according to the ingredient’s patent holder.
