NSP QUALITY UNCOMPROMISED

GOOD NEWS FROM CHINA: NSP QUALITY STILL UNCOMPROMISED

Despite scares in the industry,

Nature's Sunshine quality is as good as ever.

by Jim Riddle

If you've been watching TV, reading the newspaper or surfing the web, you have surely seen some of the truly scary stories about health quality concerns regarding product originating in China. Toys, pet food, raw material and other products from China have been recently scrutinized after incidents that have forced some US companies to issue product recalls due to concerns about heavy metal, chemical and foreign material contamination. Although these stories have been making the rounds in the media, this is nothing new for NSP Quality Assurance experts who have spent years developing some of the most sophisticated QA testing protocols in the industry. While these events are relatively rare, it should be known that Nature's Sunshine always stays a step ahead in issues of quality.

NSP is most often celebrated for quality. Our manufacturing facility is TGA certified, which means we meet the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration Pharmaceutical Standard requirements - the highest standard in our industry. We also test and validate based on the most recent Food and Drug Administration Good manufacturing Practices (GMPs). We test every incoming raw material to ensure quality and activity, and ensure ingredient integrity through identification testing (test for certain activity markers and ingredient attributes), stability testing and micro testing. We also test for pesticides.

Regardless of origin, every material is subject to the same quality assurance procedures to ensure that it meets our specifications and label claims through the expiration date, and in most cases much longer.

Although the vast majority of our ingredients are sourced from countries other than China, we do source several materials from China. For example, our very popular line of Chinese and Chinese TCM products are all sourced from China. The material that comprise these products are tested, just like all our materials, and required to meet all of our specification before being used in any of our products. If we ever find a batch of material that fails our Quality Assurance process, it is immediately rejected and we do not use the material.

Xiaolan Kou, Ph.D., NSP's Manager of Methods Development, explains that NSP's extensive Quality Control and testing processes assure:

• The use of the highest quality herbal materials
• Consistency in the manufacturing process.
• The production of a finished product that meets our strict microbiological and heavy metal requirements.

She goes on to explain that although raw material are tested by our vendors, they still go through rigorous testing procedures at NSP before they can be used in our finished products. These tests include:

• Organoleptic
• Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometry (F.T.I.R.)
• Thin Layer Chromatography (T.L.C)
• High Performance Liquid Chromatography (H.P.L.C.)
• Microbiological tests (aerobic plate count, mold, yeast, E.coli, salmonella and enterobacteria)
• Heavy metal (tests for lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium)

Undoubtedly, there are products on the market that are manufactured with poor-quality materials that may prove to be inactive and ineffective. Costly, inefficient and potentially dangerous for consumers who think they are buying one thing, but are really getting another, this problem is not new to the market, and it isn't isolated to Chinese materials. Unfortunately, some U.S. companies are buying low-quality materials for their products and selling them to the unsuspecting consumers. The good news is that NSP customers and distributors can rest assured knowing that Nature's Sunshine tests every material that comes through its doors and guarantees that every product that leaves its facilities will meet the highest specifications in the industry.

"Many supplement companies do not conduct testing of their own and simply accept the vendor's testing. At NSP, we require the vendor to test, and in addition, we test EACH lot. We do not do skip lot testing. This testing is critical in assuring that no contamination exists." ~Lynda Hammons, Vice President QA/QC and Regulatory Affairs