The document details the Congress’ agreed upon stipulations for creating an “optional new category” for classifying and labeling herbal products apart from the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act, under which herbs may not be marketed as medicines. 

The guiding assumptions and key components of the document are posted online at www.ahpa.org  as well as on the other sponsoring organizations’ websites. 

Public comments may be sent to TMCongressFeedback@pobox.com .  The deadline for comments is June 30^th, although this date may be extended. 

Regulated: Public Safety or Restricted access?  By Kara Sigler, Clinical Herbalist Intern

We have all been hearing about the Traditional Medicinals Congress recently, the proposed legislation by nine national organizations to regulate how herbs are labeled and what herbs may or may not be available to the public in the future.  But why just now?  The TM Congress originally met in 2004 to draft “A Proposed Regulatory Model for Traditional Medicinals”.  Yet it has only come to the attention of the lay Western Herbalist community within the last few months.  Even the American Herbalists Guild, the only voice of western herbalists on the board of the TM Congress, was not forthcoming in announcing to the public, or even its own members that the document was being drafted.  The AHG website has one small press release on the TM Congress dated November 29^th, 2005, which directs readers to the AHPA official site where the document can be downloaded.  The only comment by the president of the AHG read “We are pleased to be part of this group of national organizations working cooperatively…”.  Apart from that the AHG made no stance on the drafted document.  A few AHG members that I spoke with had not seen any mention of the TM Congress in any newsletter they had received.  This lack of informing western herbalists, who will definitely be affected by the legislation, does not bode well for this community unless we take it upon ourselves to make our opinions heard and incorporated into the proposal.   Responding to a question already fielded publicly, the AHPA webpage states that Yes, others may join the Traditional Medicinals Congress as long as they meet the stated criteria.  Western Herbalists need to be more represented on a national level since this kind of legislation affects not only the way we practice our craft, but also the way we dispense and make our medicines, and the way our educational facilities may be accredited in the future. 

While carefully reading over the Guilding Assumptions and Key Components of the proposed document, I found that the language used was not difficult or full of jargon, yet I did have to read between the lines.  The supposed “goal of the Traditional Medicinals Congress is to benefit public health by ensuring access to traditional medicinals in a manner that provides a reasonable expectation of public safety”.  This alleged purpose of regulating the sale of herbal medicines for the public’s own safety worries me.  Questions arise for me such as what is considered “reasonably” safe for public consumption, what constitutes a “traditional use” that must be proven to use herbs, and who in the future will be a “qualified” practitioner to dispense said “safe” herbs.  The document claims to be acting in the interest of the public, “to ensure access”, but they are just creating more regulations and removing herbal medicine further from the hands of the people to heal themselves.

To their credit, the TM Congress is creating a framework for instituting regulations by a group of practitioners and manufacturers, who truly have traditional medicinals quality as their focus, as opposed to being regulated by an outside government agency.  As it stands there are few regulating bodies over the use of herbal products, namely the FDA under the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act and the Food Drug and Cosmetic Act, which the TM Congress deems not to be effected by this “optional new category” they are creating.  So why institute regulations and laws where they previously did not exist and seem not to leave a lack there of?  A closer look at the home page of the sponsoring herbal organizations brings the answer into sharp relief.  By changing the way herbs can be labeled as medicinals, the AHPA and other large scale herbal manufacturers have financially to gain by filling a market niche that if regulated, could exclude smaller companies from the fees imposed by accreditation and restricted public access to certain herbs deamed unsafe by the Traditional Medicinals Congress board. 

Although the authors of the draft state that their document does not affect herbalists, it does lay a groundwork for future regulations and accrediting standards for designating who is a qualified practitioner to dispense said herbs.  This especially affects western herbalists and traditional healers who are not accredited or licensed, and who practice outside an allopathic model of regulation. This subject is at the forefront of political and economic legislation as the herbal industry boasts $4 million in sales and continued rapid growth.  Hopefully the country’s blossoming awareness of traditional medicinals and alternative models of healing means that these will continue to be accessible to the public and the practitioners of non-western forms of medicine.  We shall see in the future whether this type of legislation actually passes, and whether it will help or harm those it is intended to protect.  

ers:

Traditional Medicines Congress ~  By Lainie Baker, Clinical Herbalist