Honso Products Containing Ephedra (Ma Huang)

FDA has announced to ban sales of supplement products containing Ephedra. The announcement has surprised the whole industry as well as alternative medicine practitioners. This is such an effective tool particularly for Chinese medicine practitioners in treating respiratory related diseases that they simply cannot afford to lose it. Fortunately, the FDA’s announcement has included a statement that excluded the Chinese medicine practitioners from the rule by stating: “the rule does not pertain to traditional Chinese herbal remedies.” Although the details of this regulation are still unclear, we as a Kampo product manufacturer feel it is important to list all of our professional products that contain Ephedra. Most importantly, according to Japan’s regulation, Honso is required to test the levels of ephedrine on all ephedra-containing products and to disclose this information within the Certificate of Analysis. The levels of ephedrine in every lot of production must be within the approved specifications of each herbal formula. This is a simple yet effective way to insure the safety usage of the ingredient by Japanese physicians. Honso USA has all the Certificate of Analysis on file and they are available to practitioners who prescribe the products.

Product number	PRODUCT NAME	JAPANESE NAME	CHINESE NAME	HONSO^®EPHEDRINE SPECIFICATION (mg/day)
H01	Kudzu Formula Extract Granules	Kakkon-to	Ge Gen Tang	17.6-32.9
H02	Kudzu Formula Plus Cnidium and Magnolia Extract Granules	Kakkon-to-kasen-kyoshin	Ge Gen Tang Jia Chuan Xiong Xin Yi	18.6-34.7
H19	Minor Blue Dragon Formula Extract Granules	Sho-seiryu-to	Xiao Qing Long Tang	15.2-28.4
H52	Coix Formula Extract Granules	Yokuinin-to	Yi Yi Ren Tang	18.6-34.6
H55	Ephedra, Apricot Kernel, Gypsum, and Licorice Formula Extract Granules	Ma-kyo-kan-seki-to	Ma Xing She Gan Tang	24.2-45.0

HONSO® EPHEDRINE SPECIFICATION (mg/day)

HONSO^®EPHEDRINE SPECIFICATION (mg/day)