March 2020 Press Release

FDA-NIEHS-HESI Led Botanical Safety Consortium Announces Call for Participants & 2020 Activities

The Botanical Safety Consortium (BSC) was officially convened in November 2019, as the result of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) , the National Institute of Health’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) , and the non-profit Health and Environmental Sciences Institute (HESI) . The mission of the BSC is to provide a forum for global scientists from government, academia, consumer health groups, industry, and non-profit organizations to work collaboratively to generate a sound scientific basis for integrating existing safety data and the latest toxicology tools to evaluate safety in botanical dietary supplements.
The BSC will fulfill its mission via the following objectives:
  • Engage with a broad group of global stakeholders to leverage the best scientific approaches
  • Establish the appropriate levels of chemical characterization for complex botanical products
  • Identify pragmatic, fit-for-purpose, in vitro & in silico assays to evaluate botanical safety
  • Evaluate the application of these tools via comparison to the currently available safety information
  • Integrate these tools and approaches into a framework that can facilitate robust evaluation of botanical substances
For additional information about the Botanical Safety Consortium, including how to join, visit the www.botanicalsafetyconsortium.org or contact HESI at  botanicalsafety@hesiglobal.org .