As its first project APTA took upon itself the task of not only raising an objection to the categorization of certain ayurvedic plants in the list prepared by the German Federal Office for Food Safety and Consumer Protection (BVL), but also the work of preparing comprehensive documents. These were then submitted through the instance of an accredited Food Chemist to support the validity of the above mentioned objections.
The complexity of the situation and the inability of even insiders of the branch to have a clear picture were demonstrated recently by the circulation of a petition to the German Parliament against the THMPD – the Traditional Herbal Medicine Products Directive. This directive is already in force since a number of years and regulates a completely
different set of products than the ones in the petition.
APTA´s efforts shall concentrate on aspects such as “Novel Food” and the general legal acceptability of plants, aspects which are considered more urgent and directly connected to the ayurvedic sector.