07.01.10
The first Plenary Meeting of a newly formed Technical Committee, provisionally titled Traditional Chinese Medicine, when it was formed last year by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), met recently in Beijing, China. Representatives from 15 countries were in attendance for this preliminary meeting. Michael McGuffin, president of the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), served as the U.S. Head of Delegation, which included acupuncture and Oriental medicine practitioners and educators as well as suppliers and marketers of Chinese herbal products. The formation of this technical committee (TC 249) came about as a result of a request in 2009 by the Standardization Administration of China (SAC) for ISO to address “standardization in the field of TCM, in terms of basis, application, administration and the related technical fields, such as terminology, diagnosis and treatment methods, manipulation standards, training standards, quality standards of appliance and equipment, and production and usage standards of Chinese herbal medicines and their test methods, etc.”