Silver Spring, MD—The American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) is setting the record straight following a report in The Washington Post focused on dietary supplements. The article, titled “Can supplements reduce cancer risk?” references an investigation targeting herbal supplements that AHPA says was built on now-discredited research and repeatedly asserts that the dietary supplement industry is “not well regulated.”
In a letter to the editor, AHPA Chief Science Officer Holly E. Johnson, Ph.D., detailed the retraction of the “notorious” study that served as the foundation for the cited investigation. Dr. Johnson requested that the publication acknowledge this missing context. As AHPA explained: “The investigation cited in the article was originally sparked by 2013 research from Steven G. Newmaster. Although the 2015 New York Attorney General’s office used those findings to infamously allege that few herbal supplements found at four major retailers actually contained the herbs listed on their labels, AHPA clarifies that the Newmaster study was officially retracted by the journal BMC Medicine in July 2024 due to data fabrication. The University of Guelph’s findings of fraud confirm what AHPA and others in the scientific community asserted over a decade ago: The investigation was built on findings from a scientifically invalid use of DNA barcoding to test processed herbal extracts.”
Fact check: Supplements “not well regulated”
In addition to calling out the now-discredited research, AHPA refuted repeated claims made in the article that dietary supplements are “not well regulated” by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“The assertion that dietary supplements lack robust oversight is a persistent myth that ignores the comprehensive federal framework already in place,” said AHPA President & CEO Graham Rigby. “Dietary supplements are strictly regulated as a category of food under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, as amended by the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA). To suggest otherwise overlooks the robust requirements that responsible manufacturers meet every day to ensure the products Americans use and trust are safe and accurately labeled.”
AHPA further explained that FDA maintains significant authority over the dietary supplement industry through several key pillars, including:
- Mandatory Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMPs) under 21 CFR Part 111, which ensure product identity, purity, strength, and composition
- The New Dietary Ingredient (NDI) notification process, which requires manufacturers to provide the FDA with evidence of safety for new ingredients before they reach consumers.
“The industry is also subject to a legal mandate requiring companies to report all serious adverse events to the FDA as well as strict labeling requirements and limitations on health and disease claims,” AHPA said, noting that the trade group is “committed to defending the integrity of the dietary supplement and herbal products industries and ensuring that public narratives are rooted in current regulatory facts and verified, peer-reviewed science.”
