Article, East West Update

Client: East West Herbs, USA

Project: In an industry that has remained largely unregulated, East West Herbs insisted on selling their traditional Chinese formulas only to licenced medical practitioners and M.D.s. When the company learned that certain ingredients common to their formulas may be misconstrued as being endangered, they knew they would have to tackle the issue directly. After extensive research into not just the CITES findings but East West Herbs' own practices and policies (including fact-checking with East West's suppliers in China), Jessica wrote an article for the company clearly explaining their stance on the issue. What resulted was an accurate, informative article that established both trust and understanding with the company's customer base.

From East West Update:

East West and CITES Compliance
From our inception, East West Herbs has made a commitment to provide our customers with the highest quality products available. Our commitment, however, goes beyond thorough testing and responsible packaging. Our role as a manufacturer and distributor of traditional formulas demands that we conduct ourselves responsibly in regards to our local, national and world communities.

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In response to the growing concerns for the preservation of the world's ecosystem, a recent conference for the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES) updated the treaty recognized by its 140 member countries. The enforcement of CITES in the United States is slowly improving, and East West Herbs continues to strictly monitor our suppliers to be sure our products conform to CITES' standards.

In the past months, we have reformulated a number of our products to ensure that they do not contain any herbs which may be protected by the CITES treaty. Four herbs that are noted by CITES as endangered—Gui Ban, Gui Ban Jiao, Tian Ma and Shi Hu—have until now been cultivated by our suppliers, ensuring no wild species were used in our formulas. To prevent any potential confusion, East West Herbs has now completely removed these herbs from fourteen of our formulas.

Giovanni Macciocia has carefully modified those formulas, in some cases choosing replacement ingredients, to ensure maximum efficacy of each formula. A specific description of the changes is available upon request.

Please be assured that the formulas you were familiar with did not contain endangered species of flora or fauna. Due to varied classifications and subspecies, as well as cultivation practices, our products have always been ecologically responsible. The changes we are making now are simply in anticipation of possible future classifications. And rest assured, the Three Treasures and Women's Treasure formulas remain as effective as ever.

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