[MPWG] Fwd: American Botanical Council Sends New York Times Letter to Editor on "Skip the Supplements" Opinion Piece

Wed Jan 8 14:14:20 CST 2014

Forwarding this message, which may be of interest as it raises many of the
issues surrounding medicinal plants as part of mainstream medicine.
-Patricia

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: American Botanical Council <publicrelations at herbalgram.org>
Date: Mon, Jan 6, 2014 at 2:45 PM
Subject: MEMBER ADVISORY: American Botanical Council Sends New York Times
Letter to Editor on "Skip the Supplements" Opinion Piece
To: patricia_deangelis at fws.gov

Click here to view this message as HTML in your browser.
http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=4A_ja3wtrRYXqS7oW3tjIQ

Member Advisory: American Botanical Council Sends New York Times Letter to
Editor on "Skip the Supplements" Opinion Piece

(AUSTIN, Texas, Jan. 6, 2014) On Monday, Dec. 16, 2013, American Botanical
Council (ABC) Founder and Executive Director Mark Blumenthal sent a letter
to the editor of The New York Times in response to an opinion article (
http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=TVzYyXyrSB7TaQtpv44hNA)
written by Paul A. Offit, MD, and Sarah Erush, PharmD, BCPS. The piece,
titled "Skip the Supplements," was published online Dec. 14 and printed on
Dec. 15, and is the latest of Dr. Offit's apparent efforts to discredit the
general science and clinically documented benefits of numerous herbal and
other dietary supplements.

Dr. Offit recently wrote a book that presents his case against the use of
dietary supplements and integrative medicine titled Do You Believe in
Magic: The Sense and Nonsense of Alternative Medicine. It is possible that
the relatively high degree of media coverage he received in the past year
may be related to his efforts to promote his book, as well as the media's
general tendency to publish negative articles. Regardless of potential book
sales (the proceeds of which are said to be donated to the Children's
Hospital of Philadelphia, where he is Chief of the Division of Infectious
Diseases and Director of the Vaccine Education Center), Dr. Offit appears
to be on a sustained campaign against integrative, complementary,
and alternative medicine. He is also a leader in educational and
media activities in support of childhood immunization and fighting
the assertion that childhood autism may be caused by or
otherwise associated with vaccination.

Owing to the Times' policy of not publishing letters to the editor that
have been circulated by email or on the Internet, ABC did not release the
contents of its letter until it became apparent that the Times was not
publishing it. The Times did publish several other letters (
http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=I8zdBmnmkQqiBtKtgiJl0Q) on the issue of
dietary supplements and safety, including a letter from Michael McGuffin (
http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=eORHEH63M9O3n58iC2l4AQ), president of
the American Herbal Products Association.

The full text of the ABC letter, and the four references cited in
the letter, follows:

December 16, 2013

Letter to the Editor
New York Times

Re: Paul A. Offit & Sara Erush, Skip the Supplements. New York
Times, Sunday, December 15, 2013

To the Editor:

We appreciate the authors' concerns about the identity, quality, and safety
of some herbal dietary supplements. For the past three years, as an
independent nonprofit research and education organization, we have led an
international consortium of independent laboratories and other parties
investigating the accidental and intentional adulteration of herbal raw
materials and extracts. [1] We have reported on herbal materials that are
adulterated with undisclosed, lower-cost ingredients. Inasmuch as we agree
that such practices are deplorable and require increased regulatory
enforcement by the FDA to help ensure proper identity of raw materials, we
disagree with many of these authors' statements.

They confound regulatory distinctions among foods, drugs, and supplements
(legally, the latter is a class of foods, not drugs). Further, the authors
consider herbs to be "drugs" because they have "pharmacological effects."
So do coffee and prunes, but they are not regulated as drugs nor would any
reasonable person recommend such. Our recent report on the top-selling
herbal dietary supplements in the US market reveals that many popular
herbal supplements are based on conventional foods or common spices. [2]
These include barley, bilberry, cranberry, cayenne pepper, garlic, ginger,
green tea, and soy, among others. They have been used in human nutrition
for thousands of years. To suggest that such foods or spices, when put into
a gelatin capsule and used for a potential or clinically documented health
benefit, should meet the pre-approval regulatory requirements of
synthetically made pharmaceutical drugs stretches the bounds of reason, and
could result in hundreds of safe ingredients being unavailable in the
market.

The authors also cite an outdated, erroneous statistic that the FDA
"estimates 50,000 adverse reactions" are reported each year for dietary
supplements, but that figure is based on a report from 2000 that estimates
prescription drug and vaccine-related adverse event data, not dietary
supplement data. [3] In contrast, FDA officials reported that 3,247 serious
adverse events were associated with supplements in 2012. [4]

In various instances, the authors uncritically embrace flawed, uncontrolled
studies with negative findings on herb supplement quality while ignoring or
dismissing entire bodies of controlled clinical trials that demonstrate
health benefits of many herbal supplements.

Their statement that "doctors ... are on their own"

when it comes to dietary supplements indicates not only an apparent lack of
education about dietary supplements in the physicians' training curriculum
but also an unfamiliarity with scientific literature on clinically tested
dietary supplement products - information that patients expect from their
health professionals.

Sincerely,

Mark Blumenthal
Founder & Executive Director
American Botanical Council
Editor-in-Chief, HerbalGram & HerbClip

References

1. ABC-AHP-NCNPR Botanical Adulterants Program. American Botanical
Council website. Available at:
http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=6MTa46kNVWtnfZlVT-N0EQ .

2. Lindstrom A, Ooyen C, Lynch ME, Blumenthal M. Herb supplement
sales increase 5.5% in 2012. HerbalGram. 2013;99:60-64. Available at:
http://abc.herbalgram.org/site/R?i=0mIxvMgS_q_39GO-tyrm6Q .

3. Walker A. The Relation between Voluntary Notification and Material
Risk in Dietary Supplement Safety. US Food and Drug Administration
Commissioned Paper, March 9, 2000.

4. Fabricant DS. Post-Market Surveillance and Risk Assessment of
Dietary Supplements. Presentation at the International Conference on
the Science of Botanicals, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS.
April, 2013.

American Botanical Council, 6200 Manor Rd, Austin, TX 78723
Phone: 512-926-4900  |  Fax: 512-926-2345  |  web: abc.herbalgram.org
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