ABC’s Stefan Gafner and Colleagues Give Lecture on Botanical Ingredient Safety Evaluation for Pharmacy Students in Malawi
In April 2021, American Botanical Council (ABC) Chief Science Officer Stefan Gafner, PhD, and colleagues took part in a virtual lecture series on botanical ingredient safety at the University of Malawi College of Medicine in Blantyre, Malawi. The online event was attended by approximately 30 pharmacy students and faculty members and was initiated by Dallas J. Smith, PharmD, a clinical pharmacy and pharmacognosy lecturer at the college, under the auspices of the Botanical Safety Consortium (BSC) and the nonprofit Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI). The lectures were part of the college’s pharmacognosy module, which teaches students about the efficacy and safety of medicinal plants and other natural ingredients and is part of the curricula for medical students in Malawi, a country in southeastern Africa that is slightly smaller than the US state of Pennsylvania and has a population of approximately 20 million people.1