The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) is revising its flagship reference, Herbs of Commerce, to produce a third edition and is continuing its survey of industry comments on the previous edition. AHPA has already received more than 950 updates from herbal industry leaders to expand and modify the previous edition.
In an effort to reduce the confusion associated with labeling of botanical ingredients in herbal products, AHPA published the first edition of Herbs of Commerce in 1992. The work established a single "standardized" common name for each of the nearly 600 broadly distributed herbs listed, recognizing that many of the herbs in trade had come to be known by many different names.
Continuing growth in demand for botanical products lead AHPA to begin production of the second edition of the text in 1995. After collecting industry input, AHPA published this second edition in 2000. The second edition greatly expanded the contents of the original edition, and reorganized its presentation to provide greater access to the contained information. The revised edition provides references to 2048 listed species including 25 fungi and 23 seaweeds.
This year, AHPA has launched the revision process again and your input is needed to ensure that the third edition provides comprehensive coverage of the herbs of commerce in the United States.
To make sure all plant species currently in commerce are included in the revised text, AHPA has extended an invitation to all industry members to indicate all the herbs used in any products marketed in the United States (herbal supplements, teas, cosmetics, foods, etc.) that are not currently included in Herbs of Commerce, 2nd edition (2000). Simultaneously, AHPA is compiling data on the plant part(s) used for each species in trade. Contributors' identifying information will be kept strictly confidential. The project working group is only provided with a compilation of the results.
This compilation is being collected via a spreadsheet recording these herbs currently in use. One sheet lists the species already included in the second edition and a separate sheet is provided for submitting species that are not currently in the text. Contributors are asked to use the former to add the part of the plant for these species and the latter for listing additional species in trade (again including plant parts) by both Latin name and common name.
In the interest of making sure all voices are clearly heard, and to provide ample time for review by the working group, contributions to the project are being solicited through Monday, August 1, 2016 by email to hoc3@ahpa.org.