HerbalEGram: Volume 5, Number 7, July 2008

The Traditional Medicines Congress (TMC) has indefinitely adjourned and disabled its web site.¹ This group came together in 2004 as a coalition consisting of organizations representing various traditional and alternative healing modalities and one trade association.

In 2004 TMC drafted A Proposed Regulatory Model for Traditional Medicines: Guiding Assumptions and Key Components that called for the creation of a new regulatory category of herbs called “traditional medicines.” The group’s goal, according to a 2004 press release from the American Herbal Products Association (one of the TMC members), was “to benefit public health by ensuring access to traditional medicines in a manner that provides a reasonable expectation of public safety.”²

Like numerous others in the herb community, in June 2006 the American Botanical Council (ABC) filed public comments to the TMC. ABC noted its previous interest and activity with respect to investigating the potential value of creating a new traditional medicine regulatory category for herbal products, i.e., prior to the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA).³ (ABC’s comments can be viewed on the ABC website here.)

Although the TMC proposal had widespread support among various members of the traditional and alternative medicine community, there were pockets of concern and resistance among numerous traditional herbalists. According to the Voice for Traditional Herbal Medicine (VOICES), a grassroots campaign that grew out of the discussion of the TMC, the TMC proposal would undermine the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA), resulting in the public’s having less access to herbs.⁴ But in a press release sent by the TMC in 2006, after the public comment period was extended due to some confusion over the proposal, the TMC stated that dietary supplements under the DSHEA would not be required to be sold as traditional medicines. Under the TMC proposal, this new category, if created, would have been optional for marketers of herbs and herbal products.⁵

Due to some of the vocal concerns and resistance expressed by some members of the herbal community, the American Herbalists Guild, another member of the coalition, withdrew its support from the TMC. Ultimately, support for the Congress and the proposal began to wane, so the congress has disbanded and its Web site no longer exists.

The members of the TMC were the Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine Alliance (AOMA), American Association of Naturopathic Physicians (AANP), American Association of Oriental Medicine (AAOM), American Herbalists 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), National Certification Commission for Acupuncture and Oriental Medicine (NCCAOM).

—Kelly E. Saxton

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