GAITHERSBURG, Md.Representatives from five supplement industry trade organizations have joined AOAC International's Stakeholder Panel on Dietary Supplements (SPDS). The SPDS is part of a new five-year AOAC initiative with the National Institutes of Health-Office of Dietary Supplements (NIH/ODS) to establish voluntary consensus standards for 25 high-priority ingredients.

Representatives of American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), Consumer Healthcare Products Association (CHPA), Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), Natural Products Association (NPA) and United Natural Products Alliance (UNPA), among other experts, are participating on the AOAC advisory panel to identify key stakeholders, subject matter experts and analytical issues; determine and prioritize 25 dietary supplements ingredients for which systematically reviewed analytical methods are needed; and set SPDS priorities.

The SPDS advisory panel includes:

Ingredient-specific working groups will be formed out of the stakeholder panel to develop draft standard method performance requirements (SMPRs). Working group recommendations are reviewed by SPDS voting members for final approval.

In the first year of the performance period, AOAC will convene two stakeholder panel meetings and seven ingredient working groups to develop SMPRs for the top seven ingredients. The first meeting of SPDS is scheduled for March 21, 2014, in Gaithersburg, MD, as part of the AOAC mid-year meeting. It is anticipated that SPDS will also meet at the 128th AOAC Annual Meeting in September 2014 in Boca Raton, FL.

AOAC encourages any individual/company to attend that has a stake in the dietary supplements industry. Participants can expect to meet a variety of colleagues in the industry and learn more about the list of priority ingredients and the AOAC stakeholder panel process. In addition, there will be opportunities to be a part of working groups to develop draft standards.