February 4, 2010 – American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) Chief Science Officer Steven Dentali, Ph.D., responds to a recently released Journal of the American College of Cardiology article on herb-drug interactions in cardiovascular patients in the newly-released issue of the AHPA Report.

The JACC article released Tuesday purports to provide useful information for cardiologists in dealing with their patients who use herbs. However, the paper, titled “Use of Herbal Products and Potential Interactions in Patients With Cardiovascular Diseases” and authored by Drs. Ara Tachjian, Viqar Maria, and Arshad Jahangir (all affiliated with the Mayo Clinic), suffers from significant and serious shortcomings.

“AHPA has long recommended that consumers tell their doctors what herbs they are taking and that doctors become sufficiently informed to provide useful advice for their patients who use herbs,” writes Dr. Dentali. “Unfortunately, this article does little to provide cardiologists with practical information.”

The AHPA Report is the monthly member newsletter of the American Herbal Products Association. The February issue also provides AHPA’s member update on the Government Accountability Office’s (GAO) letters requesting information on herbal products and the International Organization for Standardization’s (ISO) Technical Committee on TCM.

Past AHPA Report articles include:

January 2010

What Does the National Toxicology Program (NTP) Have to Do With the Herbal Products Industry?

by Katia Fowler, Director of Communications, AHPA

Report on the Status of NTP’s Technical Report on Goldenseal
by Michael McGuffin, President, AHPA

December 2009

New Food Safety Legislation – What Might It Look Like?
by Anthony L. Young, Esq., Partner, Kleinfeld Kaplan & Becker and AHPA General Counsel

November 2009

FTC’s Revised Testimonial Guides Will Be the Law of the Land Dec. 1: Is Your Advertising and Labeling in Compliance?
by Anne Maher, Esq., Partner, Kleinfeld Kaplan & Becker

Monthly features include a review of lessons learned from recent Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Warning Letters by AHPA General Counsel Anthony Young and the “Botanical Science Update,” in which Dr. Dentali reports on recent meetings attended and reviews recently published articles.

The AHPA Report is your source for recent news from AHPA and topical articles of interest to your company. If you are not an AHPA member and are interested in accessing the AHPA Report, please visit our bookstore. AHPA members should login with their username and password and visit: http://www.ahpa.org/Default.aspx?tabid=99.