SAVE HERBALISM!!!

[Lozen]

Dear plant, supplement, tincture, salve and tea lovers,

 

I recently attended the Southwest Conference on Botanical Medicine, and heard about the Traditional Medicines Congress Proposal and Regulatory model.

 

I will admit that I haven't read through the entire document as thoroughly as I should have yet because I have been out of town and swamped with fifty different projects, but I think it is very important to pass it on because it looks like it could seriously affect the face of plant medicine in this country and impact

herbalists, herbal product manufacturers (including me making purslane pesto or calendula salve in my backyard), herbal store owners, curanderos, etc. etc. the list goes on and on.

 

Please read the proposal carefully and make your voice be heard. The proposal is available here:

http://www.ahpa.org/05_1129_TMCongress_ProposedModel.pdf Send your feedback to [email protected]

 

In addition, you can send your comments the American Herbalists Guild (for the record, it's our understanding that the Guild did not help in writing this proposal, but got involved after the fact so that herbalists could have their voice heard)and to the American Herbal Products Association. It is my understanding that the AHPA did not mention this proposal to board members at the last board meeting.

 

Websites for AHG and AHPA are www.americanherbalistsguild.com and

www.ahpa.org.

 

AHPA claims that the TM Congress has no interest in regulating herbalists or preparations that herbalists use, but the document implies otherwise, imo. Please read it carefully and send comments, questions, prayers, etc.

 

Yael

[hajii]

Lozen,

welcome back! I'm sorry to hear about that proposal. The work you and other herbalists do is very valuable. Have you considered creating a petition people could sign?

Edited April 18, 2006 by hajii

[VCraigP]

Dear plant, supplement, tincture, salve and tea lovers,

 

I recently attended the Southwest Conference on Botanical Medicine, and heard about the Traditional Medicines Congress Proposal and Regulatory model.

 

I will admit that I haven't read through the entire document as thoroughly as I should have yet because I have been out of town and swamped with fifty different projects, but I think it is very important to pass it on because it looks like it could seriously affect the face of plant medicine in this country and impact

herbalists, herbal product manufacturers (including me making purslane pesto or calendula salve in my backyard), herbal store owners, curanderos, etc. etc. the list goes on and on.

 

Please read the proposal carefully and make your voice be heard. The proposal is available here:

http://www.ahpa.org/05_1129_TMCongress_ProposedModel.pdf Send your feedback to [email protected]

 

In addition, you can send your comments the American Herbalists Guild (for the record, it's our understanding that the Guild did not help in writing this proposal, but got involved after the fact so that herbalists could have their voice heard)and to the American Herbal Products Association. It is my understanding that the AHPA did not mention this proposal to board members at the last board meeting.

 

Websites for AHG and AHPA are www.americanherbalistsguild.com and

www.ahpa.org.

 

AHPA claims that the TM Congress has no interest in regulating herbalists or preparations that herbalists use, but the document implies otherwise, imo. Please read it carefully and send comments, questions, prayers, etc.

 

Yael

 

 

 

Who is behind this proposal? This is the first most important question.

 

A cursory reading of the document leads me to believe that this represents a power grab by the FDA.

 

Language which looks innocuous enough but which seems to proceed from the assumption that there is NO assurance of safety in traditional medicines.

 

wouldn't we be better served focusing on some better assurance of safety in Pharmaceuticals?

 

This smells rotten to me, very rotten.

 

Craig

[Lozen]

The proposal was actually written by herbalists, is the scary part.

 

Groups that signed up (and that you should contact!!!) include:

 

Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Alliance (AOMA);

American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP);

American Association of Oriental Medicine (AAOM);

American Herbalist Guild (AHG);

American Herbal Products Association (AHPA);

Council of Colleges of Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (CCAOM);

Medicinal Herb Consortium (MHC);

National Ayurvedic Medical Association (NAMA); and

National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM).

 

I spoke with Michael McGuffin from AHPA at length this morning about my concerns with this proposal and how it would affect me personally, esp. as a user of chaparral, which I'm sure a lot of people would love to outlaw. I definitely don't agree with the proposal and find some wording extremely problematic, but I think the intent behind this is a good one--Michael is concerned that it's basically illegal to write medicinal uses on products being sold right now, and that herbs are already regulated either under the label of vitamins and supplements or under the FDA. I don't have copies of the acts he mentioned yet, but I will get ahold of it. He was unsatisfied with the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act; this proposal is a response to that act.

 

Another reason for this act is that the FDA keeps taking away herbs we use, and he thought this would make it possible, at l east for "qualified practitioners" or manufacturers, to use plants that are otherwise illegal, so that they would still be available.

 

In any case, it sounds like they are going to go through with it in one way or another, and in my opinion, I think the best way we could spend our energy would be to come up with specific examples of things that need to be rewritten. For example, I asked Michael if they would consider changing the list of books to "including, but not limited to" and of course add about two hundred books that I'm going to send him the list of. I also mentioned that some traditional uses are proprietary information and are passed down from generation to generation and that trade secrets and tribal lore should not need to be either written or shared publically.

 

Secondly, I recommended that they remove the word "qualified" because it implies a qualifying agency or board. Michael recommended the word "knowledgeable" but I'm not sure I agree with that either, as I'd rather have unknowledgeable people be able to use herbs as well, and who determines who is knowledgeable? Michael recommended saying "considered knowledgeable by their client" but I don't know if that would fly either. I told Michael I ate a lot of ice cream the other day, and am not a nutritionist, and got a stomachache, and even gave ice cream to others in the past who also got stomachaches, but I don't need a regulatory body to consider me a qualified and/or knowledgeable nutritionist in order for me to serve food to others...

 

He is considering removing the "knowledgeable practitioner" clause altogether and making the proposal solely about products being sold.

 

I told him that he had better closely define a lot of the language used, including "knowledgeable practitioner" for instance.

 

I also told him I'd like to see public minutes of Board meetings (which are in the works), as well as specific names of the people involved in making the proposal. They are working on getting the minutes posted. I expressed concern with the way they asked for feedback, basically asking for help in fundraising and contacting Congress to implement the proposal.

 

I expressed concern with the timing. Michael said the AHG did not do a good job of getting this information out to herbalists. He also said that the reason this proposal is moving so fast is because of acupuncturists he is working with who are feeling impatient. I told him to tell them to do the healing sound for liver, and he laughed and said I need to tell the herbal community to do the healing sound for liver as well. I told him if the deadline was extended, it would probably take care of things. I mean we have until June 30th to comment on it...

 

 

I asked for a change in the paragraph that says "Facilities that prepare traditional medicines that are available only through the agency of a qualified practitioner, including, for example, a practitioner clinic; a compounding pharmacy; or a school, utilize production practices that are appropriate to the individual setting to assure that manufactured products are not adulterated. Such facilities, however, are exempt from any specifically mandated good manufacturing practice regulations." I asked him if he would add "Yael's kitchen" and "Yael's backyard."

 

 

I plan on going over this entire document with a fine-toothed comb and sending specific section rewrites and constructive criticsm, making sure that all of the clauses (etc.) that would affect herbalists and medicine-makers would not be limitting by. They *say* this is their intent but it would be nice if their intent was written into the document.

 

Some follow-ups on kitchens and on "proprietary information" or tribal lore.... I am a huge fan of sharing knowledge freely! I write all the ingredients on anything I make and teach others how to make them. However, there are certain plants and certain ceremonies that I won't talk about with just anybody. This is true everywhere. Does that mean those should be regulated?

 

On the reservations if an anthropologist or manufacturer was to ask the elders and the medicine men and medicine women for their hard-won wisdom, I don't think they would give it just for the asking.Heck, even one of my teachers won't give me all of his formulas; he saves it for his apprentices who he hand-picks, there is no application process and I'm not one of them. I am thankful for the knowledge I receive from people, books and plants and ttry not to be greedy about it...

 

As far as licensed kitchens, well this affects me personally. I make salves and liniments in my kitchen. I give most of them away but I do sell some of them off my website, to martial artists I know, and I will even be selling some of them in local stores. In fact, I see salves in most of the stores I shop in, not just Wild Oats but also the co-op, Aqua Vita, Native Seeds/Search, etc. I see lots of liniments and salves and oil (Thai oil and dit da jow) sold at Fong's Wing Chun school and various martial art shops that are not primarily making products in their kitchen. Like most herbalists, I don't make money off of my products. I do it for love and I lose money. I can barely afford the business licenses I'm supposed to get once I make my $600/year (or whatever it is) and I certainly can't afford the extra $125/year plus hundreds of dollars on certified licensed kitchen ingredients to have someone regulate my kitchen. I'm sure that some of the martial art shops making liniments and dit da, recipes handed down by their families for generations (which they may or may not want to share), would not want to get inspected kitchens. So these products will basically disappear, or at least would have to be bought under the table. This would be a sad, sad day. And think of all the workshops you've given or attended to teach people how to make salves whatnot. You are charging for the class and the materials, I presume. Does that mean that this kitchen would need to be inspected as well?

 

I would like for it to not be illegal for me to buy medicine from my friend who has cats in her kitchen. I'm really okay with that. I mean I take a formula that has wu ling zhi in it, also known as feces trogopterori, or stir-fried squirrel shit. If I can deal with that, I can deal with a cat hair in my salve...

[Smile]

I mean I take a formula that has wu ling zhi in it, also known as feces trogopterori, or stir-fried squirrel shit.

Yummy!

[Lozen]

by Cascade Anderson Geller

 

 

RE: "A Proposed Regulatory Model for Traditional Medicines: Guiding

Assumptions and Key Components," which you will find by clicking on

this link: http://www.ahpa.org/trad_med_congress.htm

 

Dear friends and colleagues:

 

When my husband got me wired and hooked to computers and then the

Internet over the past two decades, I vowed to tithe10% of my computer

time to issues I deemed important to the public good. As I've advanced

fully into the far-side of middle age, I find that a majority of my

time, computer and otherwise, could be spent on advocacy and activist

issues. It is increasingly more difficult to decide whether or not to

forward yet another item to our friends and colleagues who are facing

their own barrage of information. If I didn't feel that the regulatory

model proposed by the Traditional Medicines Congress was potentially

extremely problematic for all of us, I wouldn't bother with it and I

certainly would not fill up your inbox with yet another item to ponder

or simply junk. Although whatever comes down the pipe if some form of

the proposed regulation were to get enacted, I would do my best to keep

it from affecting me much personally. None-the-less, I still feel

compelled to speak up because of not only the potential ramifications

of it for the future of herbalism, but because of the way it came

about.

 

After interviewing many well-connected and well-known people in our

field, as well as others who are members of the endorsing groups, none

of which admitted having any knowledge about this proposal nor the

creation of the congress, I have to believe that the self-appointed

congress did not want to have a public dialog. Of course if any

regulatory action were to be begun, a public dialog would break out and

this would tap a whole bunch of energy (remember DSHEA.) Federal

regulation is the highest and roughest sea to navigate. We cannot

allow a small self-selected group to craft and guide herbalism into

these treacherous waters. Though I don't know all of the ins and outs

about the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) <www.ahpa.org> it

seems that they have done some sound work in the past. However, by

becoming the administering agent, as it appears they have, of the

Traditional Medicines Congress and their regulatory proposal, they

appear to be overstepping as well as treading on thin ice. They admit,

for example, that running a public dialog is too much for their

administrative staff. This alone should raise not only hackles, but an

absolute flood of questions by all sectors within the herb industry,

especially AHPA members, as well as those members of organizations who

apparently paid hundreds, or more dollars, for membership into the

Traditional Medicines Congress. (There have been requests made to the

email address of the congress for information about the financial

arrangements of this organization.) If the administrator of the

congress cannot manage a public process within the small herb

community, how will they manage the cumbersome, tricky and highly murky

federal process once it has begun?

 

Once the large warship of the federal legislation and regulatory

process gets a head of steam, whoever is paddling the small boat of the

herb world will be begging and pleading for bailers from every aspect

of the profession. The herbal world will be plunged into a tidal wave

of convolutions and seemingly illogical antics of government.

Absolutely all hands will be needed on deck to make sure that any

semblance of the diverse herb network we know will be left afloat.

Alas, there will be casualties and most likely these will be things

that we all take for granted right now, but that vastly enrich our

lives.

 

Perhaps more disconcerting, the congress seems to be spinning a tale

that regulation is needed. Better minds than mine have said that this

is absolutely untrue. I know for a fact that in our nation we have

better access to herbal products, including bulk herbs, from a myriad

of small and larger companies, as well as access to a huge variety of

health care consultants, some licensed and others not. I can walk into

a sterile pharmacy and buy tinctures and capsules from the

slick-packaging, larger companies, go to the national health food store

chains and find a bioregional-crafted salve, or support the local food

co-op and find herbalists I've never met, but am sure I would enjoy

taking a walk with, just by reading the labels on their favorite herbal

tonic available on the shelf. We can find each other and our

interesting products at farmer's markets, craft fairs and other venues.

Thankfully, these herbalists are not afraid of being arrested or fined

for selling their wares.

 

In fact, after three decades of herb-shopping around the entire globe,

I think access to supplements and herbs and alternative health care is

one of our greatest remaining freedoms; maybe one of the best

testaments to free enterprise left. My European friends and colleagues

are shocked to find that we can formulate as we like, actually combine

red clover, yellow dock and nettles into one bottle if that's what

appears to be called for. At an "herbal festival" in the mountains of

Provence last summer, our group was absolutely shocked to find a lone

and lonely couple at their booth hiding their lovely herb products

behind the counter since it has become impossible for anyone outside of

pharmacists and other licensed professionals to sell herbals. They

were willing to sell things, but only to people that knew enough to ask

for something specifically. They warned us that we should not let any

of the liquor sellers know that we intended to soak herbs in the

alcohols, either, since that would constitute making medicine and be

firmly against the law. This is France, for Goddess sake, in the midst

of hillsides covered with blooming wild lavender and thyme just

beckoning to all knowledgeable herbalists.

 

I confess that although I absolutely loved the movie, Thanks for

Smoking, I am not a Libertarian and I do believe in government

regulation. I don't believe in unnecessary regulation, however. I

find that there is excessive misguided, unnecessary regulation promoted

by industry so that they can get access to our local, state and federal

tax dollars for huge public works contracts that don't serve the public

at all. I could go on a lengthy rant about this issue filled with

facts and figures. As one lawyer I spoke to said, "No industry goes

seeking regulation, unless there are big bucks to be made in meeting

the regulation and that industry can get high-paying contracts for

projects that are then necessary to fulfill the regulatory guidelines."

 

I am still missing crucial information about the formation of the

Traditional Medicines Congress. I hope that the requests for more

transparency will be quickly forthcoming. After spending a bunch of

time sleuthing and collecting data, I've crafted some thoughts below.

 

This proposed regulation is unnecessary, unwise and would be a total

waste of our tax dollars because of the following:

 

Safety: We absolutely don't need federal regulation to protect us from

herbs. A case could be made for some kind of protection from

adulterated "herbal products", most of which are imported and not

crafted by the American herbalist. This proposed legislation doesn't

deal directly with this issue and labeling laws should be in place to

protect people in the first place. This draft regulation is misleading

in that it creates suspicion that the public needs to be protected from

herbs, or at least some of them. I don't believe there are any figures

to support this, especially relative to the millions of people who

enjoy the freedom to buy or consume herbs and supplements in all their

various forms.

 

Access to herbs: We already have the best access to herbs, and now

some of the best quality due to the burgeoning organic growers network,

in the world. The "ban" on ephedra-ish products seems to have been one

of the alleged driving forces behind mobilizing the congress and its

draft. My prediction is that if a rendition of this legislation ever

came to pass, boy would we ever lose access to more than ephedra in the

marketplace. (Of course, there is always ephedra available since it is

a gift from the Earth and graces many landscapes across our beautiful

globe.) That companies can't write everything they would like to share

about their products' label is an issue, but if they think that this

legislation is going to open that door, they better read it more

closely and think a little harder about the ramifications. Larger

herbal businesses should be as concerned as anyone about moving forward

with this regulation.

 

Formation of a reigning group: There is the issue of a small group of

licensed folks, who may or may not even be able to identify ephedra in

the field, getting to travel to Washington and sit around with the

secretary of health and human services, who I hope has much better

things to do with their time than discuss herbs, most of which are on

the GRAS list. I am quite certain that the department of health and

human services folks will probably definitely not be able to identify

ephedra in the field, and will not have any interest in herb

identification in the first place. I also would bet a peck of freshly

picked, potent stinging nettles tips, that the secretary, and maybe a

few of those sitting on the traditional medicines board, will not have

seen a strong solution of hand-stripped Oregon grape rhizome bark whip

the pants off any and all of the orthodox conjunctivitis remedies from

the pharmacy, either OTC or prescription. I doubt that the regulatory

agency would have a category for even the compelling argument that this

simple herbal solution has gained such local fame that the local

M.D.'s, pharmacists and nurses are willing to get it from their local

herbalist to try and get their own children back in school, and

therefore cut down the cost of sick child care they are shelling out,

after a pink-eye outbreak. Administering to this reigning group could

prove to be a somewhat lucrative position for the right person/group,

that is if a whole lot of funding can be drummed up from the herbal

manufacturing sector. Imagine the small herb business needing to send

profits from 5 out of every 10 of their calendula salve pot sales to

make sure their whisper is heard in Washington. Then there is the

necessary lobbying that this legislation will create. Now there IS

some potential wining-and-dining fun and profit to be had, albeit

somewhat dampened by the shenanigans of Jack Abramhoff and company.

And by the way, where are the authentic "traditional people" on the

Traditional Medicines Congress and in the reigning group's model?

 

Sanctioning of the herbal "Holy Scriptures": I can only begin to

imagine all of the posturing, and perhaps down right groveling, that

will take place when the sanctioned texts, from which we all are

supposed to take our information, our formulas, our "wisdom", are

listed. These texts will guide the conversations of the reigning group

and government agency telling us who can use which herb, what herbs can

be confined together in the same formula, etc., etc. It will most

certainly be a hey day for the writers of "pseudo-science", if I may

borrow the phrase that I believe pharmacognosist, Varro Tyler, rest his

soul, coined to describe the bulk of herbal literature he came across

late in the last century. I took offense of his term two decades ago,

but I've come to realize that it is a handy and perfect adjective for

far too many of the "serious" herb publications being pumped out today,

both from Europe and the U.S.A. If I was a budding herbalist these

days, and didn't know better from life experience, I would be quite

frankly nervous about all of the deleterious side effects and

contraindications being presented in "scholarly" herb works of our

times. There is also the issue of the written word versus the spoken

tradition. Those authentic traditional people are going to find

themselves in the same boat that Columbus arrived in afloat with masses

of pieces of parchment that say, "Sorry you lose everything."

 

Thwarting diversity by driving a stake into the heart of organizations

and others considered to be loose canons, including educational

institutions, professional organizations as well as those individuals

who have been dubbed "informal elitists" and who have been deemed to be

uninformed about the facts of clinical herbal practice in the field of

natural healing: Though most of those in the field of natural healing

are, most likely, strong advocates for fighting for policy that

protects diversity in nature, when it comes to our own professional

turf, we seem to believe that diversity needs to be pruned with razor

sharp shears. The language in the draft regulation effectively dumps

diversity on the compost heap. Without pointing fingers and getting

into old and more recent "war zones", I feel compelled to point this

out. Moving forward with this regulation will undoubtedly unleash a

"holy war" and the supporters of regulation will need to engage more

than one strategist and troops to face two fronts in order to maintain

momentum. (Perhaps Donald Rumsfeld will be job-searching at the just

the right moment in time.) Like all wars, it will be ugly and painful,

and in the end the losses will far and away exceed any, and all, gains.

 

On the upside, our lovely Earth will continue to blanket all of our

battlefields with her healing herbs, wildflowers and forests. That is

as long as she is capable of supporting these types of highly

complicated, green life forms. In fact, this is the main point I would

like to make. We are faced with sobering, knee-shaking, brain-quaking

and heart-breaking news everyday. The news that life-supporting cycles

are broken is supported by our best scientists as well as our wisest

traditional medicine people from every locale around the world. Heck,

any of us can just saunter up to our neighborhood glacier and see that

it is a fraction of its former self in less than half of our lifetimes.

When global warming makes it onto a huge cover story in the

conservative-leaning Oregonian newspaper, someone better start doing

something big.

 

Meanwhile, if this regulation proposal keeps on being pumped, instead

of spending our precious time on helping to heal the real wounds of our

culture and planet, we are going to be spending a whole lot of time

bantering back and forth about one thing that isn't broken. Herbalism

in the U.S.A. isn't perfect, and it never will be, but we have access

to most herbs, we have access to herbalists and a vast variety of

herbal education, we have access to licensed practitioners and degreed

education, and we have a wonderfully, diverse group of wild and whacky,

insightful and truly special people to share the few moments we have on

this our beautiful Earth Mother.

 

It is the grass-roots network, in all of its glorious diversity, that

has allowed the U.S.A.'s herbal field to blossom into a financially,

and more importantly spiritually, supportive environment. Men and

women in "herbal" suits may not want to relate to those tranced out,

flowery-bedecked herbalists standing in a circle in some

breath-takingly beautiful landscape singing "Standing on the ground

with our roots growing down, our branches wide and open." But when

that circle unfolds and all of those hundreds, indeed thousands, of

people get back into their gas-eating vehicles and become consumers

again, those same "herbal suits" are only too happy to spend the

profits generated by the sales of their latest rhodiola or maca or

staid echinacea products to those hand-holding herbal types who have

just become further educated at an herbal conference. The same could

be said for the authors and publishers of the many herb books and herb

related publications, the administrators of schools and organizations,

as well as practitioners with or without credentials. We are connected

and we do help each other along the herbal path. I do not believe that

more government regulation, nor the threat of it coming from within our

own profession, will foster prosperity and goodwill on any level.

Instead it will thwart and twist it, feeding mistrust and all its

associated darkness and suspicions.

 

In the name of the public good, lets rescue diversity and instead let

this draft regulation be laid to rest on the compost heap.

 

Yours with spring flowers in my hair and with roots growing down,

 

Cascade Anderson Geller

Portland, Oregon U.S.A.

 

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and

diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the

public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. - Adam Smith

 

If they can get you asking the wrong questions, they don't have to

worry about the answers - Thomas Pynchon