AHP Mourns the Loss of AHP Board Member Michael McGuffin
1951-2025
by Roy Upton, Founder of AHP
When I founded the American Herbal Pharmacopoeia in 1995, the first person I thought of as a partner in herbal crime was Michael McGuffin. Michael and I first met sometime in the late 1980s during an Anaheim trade show while he was a part of McZand Herbals. McZand hosted a tour of their facility. It was one of the first herbal manufacturing facilities I had seen. This was followed by a wonderful party in the home of Janet Zand somewhere overlooking the beach down by Venice. After that, we became intensely holed at the hips while lobbying against the enactment of language within the proposed regulations for the Nutritional Labeling and Education Act (NLEA) and throughout the entire period of our support for the passage of DSHEA. Thereafter, most everything we worked on we worked on together but also maintained a close personal relationship. He was the only industry friend I invited to my wedding and I enjoyed a number of wonderful Sunday brunches that was a staple of his Venice home for decades where literally all were welcome. Most of the time Michael said there was always one or more people present he never knew.
Around 2000, Michael took over as president of the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA), a position he maintained for the next 25 years. Right away, we worked on project after project, one of the first being the first edition of Herbs of Commerce and the Botanical Safety Handbook (BSH), which if memory serves me correctly, was the brain child of long-time friend and AHPA member Daniel Gagnon (Herbs Etc., Santa Fe, NM). This was before the internet and personal computers and so it was a bunch of manual labor. BSH was birthed in the library of noted herbalist Christopher Hobbs at his home in Santa Cruz, CA where I also live. It began with about 30 of us who came together for an inaugural meeting to hammer out the format; mostly herbalists and naturopaths. We were to meet once a month and go through page by page of Chris’ library one herb at a time. Immediately, we realized many authors uncritically parroted what other secondary sources said. When we found something of particular concern we traced back to the earliest reporting of that factoid, which often led to a dead end of where it originated. That set the tone of how BSH continued to develop; combining evidence obtained from respected references, the scientific literature, and our own real-world experience. As projects often go, the original 30, most of whom were from disparate states, was whittled down to myself, Michael, and Chris as the primary collators and reviewers, and Alicia Goldberg, who at the time worked for me at Planetary Herbals, was hired to help pen it all. Michael would drive or fly (probably flew cause he hated to drive) up from Southern California. If my memory serves me correctly, we sat on the floor of Chris library for a better part of three years drafting the first edition. It is fair to say the initial edition was greatly limited by what we had access to at the time but it established a precedent of how we would critically review data. Since then, BSH has evolved into one of the most seminal texts on herbal safety ever written in any language. The second edition was partially supported by a grant from the Office of Dietary Supplements, compiled by Zoe Gardner, then a PhD student at the University of Massachusetts, and reviewed by a multi-disciplinary committee of herbalists, chemists, medical doctors, pharmacognosists, and pharmacologists for the second edition. It is an incredible piece of work that has been developing and evolving since 1997 and continues with monthly zoom meetings with the 3rd edition updated electronically in the same meticulous fashion.
Other works such as Herbs of Commerce, now in its third edition and the AHPA-AHP Good Agricultural and Collection Practices (GACP) numerous guidance documents, CITES work, herb tonnage surveys, and a constant advocacy with legislators such as Tom Harkin and regulators including the Food and Drug Administration, followed. Through Michael’s efforts, the first edition of Herbs of Commerce was written into the Code of Federal Regulations. While a double-edged sword on how it may be used against industry, that in itself was a huge accomplishment. Joe Betz recently reminded me that it was Michael who recognized the need for AHPA to have a Chief Science Officer and Dr. Joe Betz, newly out of FDA, served in that role. Since then, others including Dr. Steven Dentali, Dr. Maged Sharaf, and currently Dr. Holly Johnson, have fulfilled this role. The most recent evolution of the Chief Science Officer position has integrated AHPA into the most seminal of all organizations and initiatives related to botanical medicine with Dr. Johnson serving on a variety of committees including for the AHP, the United States Pharmacopeia, NSF International, AOAC International, American Botanical Council, and numerous others I probably do not know. The need for AHPA to have a strong and ongoing scientific interface with academic, other industry groups, and regulators was envisioned by Michael.I believe one of Michael’s greatest attributes was his command of all things related to GMPs. Many of the memorial comments provided by friends and colleagues emphasized this aspect of Michael’s brilliance. He knew the minutiae better than most and was a constant advocate for industry with state and federal regulatory agencies and sometimes international agencies as well. Over the years, his advocacy on all regulatory issues was predominantly guided and facilitated by long-term AHPA legal counsel Tony Young. They were a dynamic duo who exuded strength and confidence in all articulated policy positions of AHPA. They both had the strength to represent the best interests of the industry even if it was unpopular with other trade associations and readily worked cooperatively with other associations for the common good. At the same time, he was doing all this BIG stuff, he was also always ready to get on the phone with AHPA members in need of either regulatory or GMP help, even for non-AHPA members. This was perhaps his second greatest gift; bridge building. He recognized that what hurt one company hurt the entire industry and that we needed to work in a unified manner to address issues in a unified manner. Michael’s ability to effectively moderate the many AHPA committee meetings he chaired or serve on was stellar. Most every meeting was a working meeting where important issues got addressed in a collaborative fashion between companies who are otherwise competitors in the market. It is fair to say, that most of us who participated in those meetings became good friends who are willing to help each other despite competing brands.
We also had a lot of fun. For many years, Michael and I organized a dinner for herbalists during Expo West where 20 or 30 herb nerds descended on a Chinese or Thai restaurant and continued our never-ending conversations about the roots, barks, leaves seeds, fruits, and herbal preparations that give us both are livelihoods and purpose in life. It has been a lot of years. There have been innumerable friends and colleagues who have shared this botanical path. For many of us, Michael was one of those central figures that we revolved around; in part due to his role as AHPA president, but in a greater part due to how he filled that role because of the brilliant, insightful, brave, strong-willed, and kind human being that he was.
I loved and respected Michael dearly. The world lost a really good man. On behalf of the AHP board of directors on which Michael served since its inception 30 years ago, and along with Dr. Joseph Pizzorno, Dr. John Cardellina, and Michael’s dearest friend and companion Staci Eisner, we offer our sincerest condolences to all in the herbal products industry who knew, loved, and respected Michael. It is fair to say we all share the same friendships and we all feel the same loss. To Michael’s family and loved ones, we hope they know how much he was loved and respected by so many outside of his biological family. I hope they know how much he contributed to making this world a better place by raising the bar of botanical medicine in so many ways.
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