What does the government say about all this health stuff?

I wanted to find out how the United States handles the regulation of herbal products and fresh and dried herbs. Since Americans are starting to seek out different option for their healthcare and daily living, I thought this would be a relatively easy task. I went to the Food and Drug Administration’s website, http://www.fda.gov/, and typed in the search bar, herbal medicine.

The first thing I found is that herbs are listed as a dietary supplement and regulated by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act instituted in 1994. According to an overview from the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition published in 2001, http://vm.cfsan.fda.gov/~dms/ds-oview.html, “Currently, there are no FDA regulations that are specific to dietary supplements that establish a minimum standard of practice for manufacturing dietary supplements.”


In further reading, in December 2006 the FDA released a draft of a document entitled “Guidance for industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration”. http://www.fda.gov/OHRMS/DOCKETS/98fr/06d-0480-gld0001.pdf From what I could understand of this document, if an herbal product makes the claim that it is “intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease in man” then it's considered a drug and is then subject to the FDA’s regulations regarding drugs. BUT, if the same herbal product made claims that its use is “to maintain the health of” than it’s a dietary supplement.
I didn’t look up that the actual FDA regulations regarding drugs and dietary supplements, not being fluent in the politico language, I was getting headache from the other documents I was trying to understand, it still seems to me there is room for loopholes. The beauty of a foreign language.


I also searched for information about regulations on the sale of fresh and dried herbs. Although I couldn’t find anything specific, the information I found referred mostly to supplements, my suggestion is to use common sense. Your local organic market is always a good place to start. I also visit my local farmer’s market. In these instances, I can speak directly to those growing or purchasing the herbs I want to buy.

The American Herbal Products Association, http://www.ahpa.org/, provides a listing of their member that includes suppliers of bulk herbs. Their members must sign and adhere to a code of ethics and their philosophy is one of self-regulation. Their members include my own personal on-line herb-shopping site, http://www.mountainroseherbs.com/. I’ve bought from them for several year sand have been quite happy with their products and service.
Whew, that was a ton of information.

In the meantime, I leave you with this: “Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, thy may be relied on to set them to rights.” Thomas Jefferson