Conservation and Protection Status of United States Pharmacopeial Convention’s Compendial Articles of Botanical Origin

Abstract

The United States Pharmacopeial Convention (USPC) publishes several compendia, which contain monographs providing definitions or descriptions, tests, procedures, and limits (acceptance criteria), to help ensure the quality of drugs, foods, and dietary supplements. Monographs for articles of botanical origin are published in the United States Pharmacopeia (USP) and the National Formulary (NF), which are published together as the USP–NF, the Dietary Supplements Compendium (DSC), the Food Chemicals Codex (FCC), and the Herbal Medicines Compendium (HMC). The presence of a monograph in one or more of these compendia is an indication of the importance of the botanical for human health and also of commercial trade and use within the United States and internationally. For a monograph to be admitted, each compendium enforces its own admission criteria, depending on the intended use of the article, regulatory status, and safety profile, among other factors. Presently, neither the conservation nor protection statuses of botanical species are provided in official or legally recognized compendia of the United States. This research comprehensively documents the botanical species specified in these five USPC compendia and reports their conservation or protection statuses with reference to the Appendices of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species, NatureServe Global and National Rank, and national Red List assessments in other countries. As a result, the USPC proposes steps to inform stakeholders on the conservation status of compendial species.