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AHPA submits comments to National Institutes of Health ODS strategic plan
September 12, 2022In comments submitted to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) on August 31, APHA offered detailed feedback on the office's 2022-2026 strategic plan. Among other suggestions, AHPA encouraged greater involvement from members of the dietary supplement community in a number of ODS activities, including a review and comment period for new and revised ODS dietary supplement fact sheets and external participation in NIH research portfolio reviews.
“These suggestions reflect the herbal community's shared interest in the ever-growing evidence base for herbal supplements”, said AHPA Director of Regulatory Affairs Robert Marriott. “Greater participation from private and public stakeholders will help the office identify research opportunities and sources of insight that might otherwise be missed.”
AHPA also requested that ODS directly communicate new or updated ODS tools, educational activities, and research outcomes to dietary supplement industry associations as a standard part of dissemination activity. Pointing to recent AHPA outreach promoting updates to the Dietary Supplement Label Database, AHPA's comments emphasized the increased impact that ODS materials can have when they are disseminated to industry, consumer, and academic stakeholders though the trade associations.