AHPA Chief Science Officer Holly E. Johnson, Ph.D., represented AHPA member interests at a meeting of the U.S. Pharmacopeial (USP) Convention's Botanical Dietary Supplements and Herbal Medicines Expert Committee held March 26-27.

The expert committee discussed a host of issues, including:

• New botanical monographs in preparation
• Botanical identification methods
• Validation guidelines & method modernization
• FDA’s Botanical Safety Consortium
• Updates from Food Ingredients Expert Committee, Cannabis Expert Panel, Probiotics Expert Panel, Nomenclature subcommittee

USP's Botanical Dietary Supplements and Herbal Medicines Expert Committee is responsible for the development of new and revision of existing monographs and their associated reference materials for botanical dietary supplements and herbal medicine ingredients. The expert committee addresses U.S. and global standards.

The expert committee was formed to:

• Work with FDA and stakeholders to develop new and improve existing botanical dietary supplement and herbal medicine monographs
• Work with FDA and stakeholders to modernize existing botanical drug monographs
• Modernize chromatographic methods for identification of articles of botanical origin as appropriate