NSP Uses United States Pharmacopoeia (USP), Institute for Nutraceutical Advancement (INA) and the Association of Analytical Communities (AOAC) and Good Manufacturing Practices Guidelines

Many of us get questions from customers asking about the regulations on dietary supplements, specifically if supplements are held to the same regulations as pharmaceutical grade products. In a survey conducted by the National Consumers League, 26 percent of consumers believe that the Food and Drug Administration approves dietary supplements for safety and effectiveness.

Dietary supplements do not need the approval of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) when they are brought to market. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) heavily regulates supplement manufacturers as to the statements and claims they can make. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) also makes routine inspections of the Nature's Sunshine Products facility as well as other nutritional supplement companies. Pharmaceutical manufacturers, on the other hand, are more strictly regulated by the FDA.

All NSP products are made according to Good Manufacturing Practices (GMP). We test all our raw herbs for potency, contaminants and microbes when we receive them from our vendors. If the raw materials do not meet our specifications they are sent back to the vendor. Nature's Sunshine rejects an average of 4-6 percent of all raw materials sent to us. We only incorporate the very best into our products and it shows in our customer satisfaction and brand loyalty.

Our Research and Development technicians use the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP), Institute for Nutraceutical Advancement (INA) and the Association of Analytical Communities (AOAC) as a basis for conducting analytical methods. We use gas chromatography-mass spectrometry and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry to ensure consistency from batch to batch. Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy (FTIR) is also utilized to confirm that what our vendors send is exactly what we requested.

NSP quality assurance is outstanding. Our QA department tests product ingredients before manufacturing begins and throughout the production process. We believe that quality control must begin with the raw material and continue throughout the entire manufacturing process. Our consumers can be assured that what is written on the label is what's in the package they purchase.

The Food and Drug Administration has issued a 10-year plan in which the goal is to have dietary supplement manufacturers adhere to a "science-based regulatory program" that gives consumers a "high level of confidence in the safety, composition and labeling" of the products. In order to do this, the FDA is considering implementing GMPs for dietary supplements, which it is allowed to do under the DSHEA act, which states:

"The Secretary may, by regulation, prescribe good manufacturing practices (GMP) for dietary supplements. Such regulation shall be modeled after GMP regulations for food and may not impose standards for which there is no current and generally available analytical methodology."

With this in mind, in 1997 several representatives of the dietary supplement industry took a proactive step and met with the FDA to set a standard of GMP to be implemented. Nature's Sunshine Products is ahead of the pack since we are meeting the GMP standards that were proposed in 1997. These GMPs have started to become adopted by many in the industry since they may eventually become law.

Consumers should be told that the dietary supplement industry is regulated under a different set of laws than that of the pharmaceutical industry. However, Nature's Sunshine Products' analytical techniques used to quantify purity and our GMP practices for our products parallel the methods utilized in making pharmaceutical grade products.