Washington, D.C., March 19, 2015—Recent actions by the New York Attorney General’s (AG) office have publicly highlighted the adulteration issue for botanicals, and the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) has forcefully defended the industry in response to these actions, specifically because the results were based on an inappropriate testing method and the AG’s office has declined to provide either the results or the testing protocol to the public. To discuss what’s happened in New York and how the industry should respond, and separately, how cases of actual adulteration will impact the dietary supplement industry, Steve Mister, president and CEO, CRN, is participating in a featured panel discussion at Ingredient Marketplace, April 7–9, in Orlando.
Titled “Adulteration & Your Role in Delivering Value to Consumers: Quality, Safety & Efficacy,” this featured panel discussion, taking place on the morning of April 8, will bring together three industry executives to discuss the role companies play to ensure a secure supply chain that delivers to consumers products that are free of adulterations, and meet their promise of quality, safety and efficacy.
“Product adulteration is an important issue that CRN and our members take very seriously. Companies that skirt the law by spiking their products with harmful ingredients or shortchange their products with economically motivated adulterants, as well as those that don’t live up to good manufacturing practices, disparage the whole industry and damage the growth and reputation of responsible companies,” said Mr. Mister. “These kinds of problems make us an easy target for industry critics, and it is in everyone’s best interests to weed out players that are not playing by the rules. Responsible companies should take this opportunity to examine their business practices and not let the actions of a few bad actors be a reflection of the industry as a whole. There are things we can—and should—do, both as individual companies and collectively as an industry.”
Mr. Mister joins co-panelists Mark Blumenthal, founder & executive director, American Botanical Council; and Dan Dwyer, managing partner, Kleinfeld, Kaplan, and Becker, LLP.