California Residents

What is Proposition 65?

Proposition 65 is a California law passed by voter initiative as the “The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act of 1986.”  The law requires warnings for low levels of lead and other chemicals listed under Proposition 65. Over 800 chemicals are currently listed under Proposition 65, and they include substances found in nature, such as lead, as well as manmade chemicals. Proposition 65’s warning thresholds are among the most stringent in the world.

Acupuncture Needle Sales in California

In February 2015, the California State Board of Pharmacy started to enforce their interpretation of Business and Professions Code Sections 4160 and 4161. They have taken the unique position that all companies distributing acupuncture needles in their state must possess a California pharmacy license, even if the distributor is not located in California.

We have been working with this board as well as other entities to secure the license necessary to offer acupuncture needles to our California customers. This process has been arduous and costly. This week, after a year and a half of submissions and revisions, we received notification from our attorney that our application was rejected. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience this may cause. We will continue to offer our California customers the service and quality herbal products they have received from us in years past. We would like to suggest that you contact Lhasa/OMS to purchase acupuncture needles.

Golden Flower’s President, John Scott, DOM wrote an article on this topic that was featured in Acupuncture Today. Please click here to access it in its entirety:

http://acupuncturetoday.com/mpacms/at/column.php?c_id=2896

Why is Golden Flower providing Proposition 65 warnings for lead?

In the past several years, private plaintiffs have issued Proposition 65 notices concerning lead to hundreds of companies in the supplement industry, including small and large companies. Golden Flower was named in one of these recent Proposition 65 notices. Golden Flower reached a settlement in that case and is providing the warnings under the terms of that settlement.

Lead is an element that is commonly found in the environment where plants are grown in the U.S. and around the world. Lead can be found in supplement products and in many foods when plants take up lead in the environment. Even though Golden Flower does not add any lead to its products, very low levels of lead are present in certain of Golden Flower’s herbal supplement products.

Golden Flower is not alone in providing Proposition 65 warnings. Many other companies doing business in California or selling products in California provide Proposition 65 warnings. Proposition 65 warnings can be seen for a wide variety of everyday products, and warnings can be seen posted throughout California in various establishments including restaurants, coffee shops, hotels, stores, buildings, and garages.

Are Golden Flower’s products safe?

Yes, all of our products are safe when used as intended, including our products carrying the Proposition 65 warning. Golden Flower has been producing Chinese herbal products since 1990. We have always had a commitment to quality and safety, always meeting and often exceeding international industry standards. That commitment will never fade. Golden Flower stands behind the safety of our products

All of Golden Flower’s products meet or do better than international standards for lead in dietary supplements. Those include standards set by United States Pharmacopeia (USP) as well as standards by the National Sanitation Foundation/American National Standards Institute. Golden Flower’s products follow quality assurance and control processes to ensure the safety of our products.

It is important to understand that California Proposition 65 is not a product safety law. Instead, it is a “right-to-know” law that requires warnings if chemicals are present above warning thresholds. In the case of lead, the Proposition 65 warning threshold is 1000 times lower than the level found to cause no reproductive harm. In other words, this warning threshold incorporates a 1000-fold margin factor and is very stringent.

To demonstrate how stringent this Proposition 65 warning threshold is, one can compare U.S. EPA’s action limit for lead in drinking water. U.S. EPA sets a 15 part per billion maximum contaminant level for lead in municipal drinking water. EPA generally assumes that the average person consumes two liters of water per day. Therefore, EPA’s action limit would allow the average individual to be exposed to up to 30 micrograms of lead per day from drinking water alone, a level that is 60 times higher than the Proposition 65 warning threshold for lead of 0.5 micrograms per day.

 

Why don’t other herbal supplement products carry the Proposition 65 warning for lead?

There could be a number of reasons. One may be that some herbal products meet Proposition 65’s stringent warning threshold for lead, just as some of Golden Flower’s products do. Another reason may be that a company is exempt from Proposition 65 because it has less than ten employees. Yet another reason may be that other herbal supplement companies have negotiated less stringent warning thresholds in settlements of lawsuits with other Proposition 65 plaintiffs. The absence of a warning on a product does not necessarily mean that the product causes a lower exposure to lead than a product that does carry a warning.

 

 

Where can I get more information about Proposition 65?

For more information about Proposition 65, you can visit the website of the California agency that administers Proposition 65: 

 www.oehha.ca.gov