The Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN) announced that vice president, scientific and international affairs James C. Griffiths, Ph.D., will chair a symposium at the 53rd Annual Meeting of the Society of Toxicology, March 23-27 in Phoenix. The symposium, " Improving the Safety of Dietary Supplements and Natural Health Products by Assessing Effects in Humans," will be a half-day session on the morning of March 26, with five scientific topic experts to discuss dietary supplement safety under the track "Advancing Clinical and Translational Toxicology and Application of Biomarkers." The symposium was developed with co-chair Scott A. Jordan, Ph.D., senior scientific evaluator, Marketed Health Products Directorate, Health Canada.
"Critics of the dietary supplement industry point to a lack of traditional pharmaceutical pre-market approval for these products as a concern, while others recognize that pre-market approval is not appropriate for products that don’t have exclusivity and don’t, in general, have the same potential for adverse events as drugs," Griffith said. "Our experts will review other methods that are appropriately being used to assess the safety of dietary supplements, including post-market surveillance, animal studies and translational methods, such as computer modeling, genetic analyses and evidence-based literature assessments."
Speakers for the symposium include: Lewis Nelson, M.D., Department of Emergency Medicine, NYU Emergency Medicine Associates; Rick Kingston, Pharm.D., SafetyCall International, PLLC, and University of Minnesota; Bill Gurley, Ph.D., College of Pharmacy, University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; Chris Xing, Ph.D., College of Pharmacy, University of Minnesota; and Vasilios Frankos, Ph.D., Global Product Science, Safety & Compliance, Herbalife, Ltd.
This marks the third symposium developed by Griffiths and Jordan on dietary supplement related toxicity that has been accepted by the Society of Toxicology. In 2012 and 2013 respectively, they organized and conducted symposia on “Translational Methods to Assess the Safety of Natural Health Products, Including Traditional Medicines and Dietary Supplements" and “Dietary Supplement Adulteration and Impact on Human Health."
CRN's Andrea Wong, Ph.D., vice president, scientific and regulatory affairs, will also share information at the Society of Toxicology meeting in a poster presentation, “Safety Evaluation Methods for Supplemental Nutrients." The poster highlights the safety evaluation methods that CRN’s former scientist, John N. Hathcock, Ph.D., developed to identify Upper Levels for Supplements (ULS). The findings are detailed in the recently released CRN publication, “Vitamin and Mineral Safety, Third Edition," available at no charge on CRN’s website.
The Society of Toxicology is a professional and scholarly organization of more than 7,000 scientists from academic institutions, government and industry representing a variety of individual who practices toxicology internationally. Griffiths is currently serving a two-year term as president of the Society of Toxicology's Food and Safety Specialty section.