We often write in this space about product quality concerns in the supplement industry and how CNCA goes to extreme lengths to guarantee the purity, potency and authenticity of all of our supplements. Now three prominent supplement industry groups are teaming up to form a consortium that hopes to put an end to a specific quality problem: adulteration of botanical ingredients and dietary supplements.

Federal regulations define adulteration as the “Addition of an impure, cheap, or unnecessary ingredient to cheat, cheapen, or falsify an ingredient or preparation.”

The consortium members, American Botanical Council (ABC), American Herbal Pharmacopoeia (AHP) and the National Center for Natural Product Research (NCNPR) will create a “self-regulatory mechanism” that addresses ingredient and product adulteration problems through education. The end-goal is to root out adulterated botanical dietary ingredients at all levels of the supply and production chain.

The consortium’s program will address both accidental adulteration that occurs as a result of poor quality-control procedures, as well as the intentional adulteration of plant-based products for financial gain—dubbed, “economically motivated adulteration” (EMA) by FDA.

The program will consist of a series of detailed white papers that will serve as an authoritative source of information on known botanical adulterants and the appropriate laboratory methods to help detect the presence or absence of these adulterants.

Good News for the Industry?

Mark Blumenthal, ABC’s founder and executive director said he’s not worried that the program may create bad publicity for the industry. “The idea that there are potentially misidentified and adulterated products out there is more injurious to the industry’s future than the message that there is an industry-funded, independent, non-profit consortium that’s putting together an educational project to allow the robust, self-regulatory initiative to help identify and prevent many of these adulterated materials from getting into the marketplace,” he said.

The Adulterants Program is currently supported by several leading trade associations in the dietary supplement industry, including the Council for Responsible Nutrition, the Natural Products Association and the United Natural Products Alliance.

CNCA Response

We have known for a long time that there were contaminated and or adulterated raw materials in the marketplace. In fact, using only the highest quality ingredients is more than just our slogan, “Expert Nutrition. Quality You Can Trust”-- it’s why we exist.

Our parent company, Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) wanted to provide dietary supplements for their patients, but knew there were quality problems in the industry. CTCA founded CNCA and established superior quality standards and third party testing requirements that would ensure a finished product that CTCA doctors could trust. CNCA continues to go beyond FDA and industry quality standards by conducting as many as 200 different tests on all raw materials and finished goods.

We are happy to see that the industry is taking steps to educate and inform its members about the continuing problem of adulterated supplements and playing an active role in resolving this serious issue. We also share in the belief that it is better to acknowledge a problem and take steps to protect your customers then to sweep it under the rug and pretend it doesn’t exist. We look forward to the day when widespread education of this problem  will finally eliminate the excuse “we didn’t know.” Get more need -to-know facts about supplement quality issues here.

Sources:

Nutraceuticals World

Consumerlab.com