Wu Ling Zi, raw herbal supplier?

[Guest guest]

golden needle is no longer able to import wu ling zi (fda ban: they

don't see injesting flying squirrel feces as a safe practice for the

American public). i've found it in granules from qualiherbs. does anyone

know of a bulk herb supplier that has it? i've got a pound on hand, but am

thinking maybe i should stock up a supply.

 

kath

 

--

Kath Bartlett, LAc, MS, BA UCLA

Oriental Medicine

Experienced, Dedicated, Effective

 

Asheville Center For

70 Woodfin Place, Suite West Wing Two

Asheville, NC 28801 828.258.2777

kbartlett

www.AcupunctureAsheville.com

 

 

 

[Guest guest]

Ugh, what next? I have friends in Europe that can't get a lot of

important herbs. I guess there's been a trend toward this in the US as

well. Maybe Emmanuel Segmen knows something about this?

 

Best,

 

Greg

 

Chinese Medicine , " Kath Bartlett,

MS, LAc " wrote:

>

> golden needle is no longer able to import wu ling zi (fda ban: they

> don't see injesting flying squirrel feces as a safe practice for the

> American public). i've found it in granules from qualiherbs. does

anyone

> know of a bulk herb supplier that has it? i've got a pound on hand,

but am

> thinking maybe i should stock up a supply.

>

> kath

>

> --

> Kath Bartlett, LAc, MS, BA UCLA

> Oriental Medicine

> Experienced, Dedicated, Effective

>

> Asheville Center For

> 70 Woodfin Place, Suite West Wing Two

> Asheville, NC 28801 828.258.2777

> kbartlett

> www.AcupunctureAsheville.com

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

Hi Kath -

 

It looks like these folks might have some available.

 

http://www.drkangformulas.com/herbs.htm

 

Kim

 

On 10/19/07, wrote:

>

> golden needle is no longer able to import wu ling zi (fda ban: they

> don't see injesting flying squirrel feces as a safe practice for the

> American public). i've found it in granules from qualiherbs. does anyone

> know of a bulk herb supplier that has it? i've got a pound on hand, but am

> thinking maybe i should stock up a supply.

>

> kath

>

> --

>

> Oriental Medicine

> Experienced, Dedicated, Effective

>

> Asheville Center For

> 70 Woodfin Place, Suite West Wing Two

> Asheville, NC 28801 828.258.2777

> kbartlett <kbartlett%40AcupunctureAsheville.com>

> www.AcupunctureAsheville.com

>

>

[Guest guest]

thanks Kim.

 

these are asia natural herbs: the same company that golden needle

distributes. they are not able to import wu ling zi due to fda blocking

shipments at point of entry to the us.

 

k

 

 

On 10/19/07, Kim Blankenship <kuangguiyu wrote:

>

> Hi Kath -

>

> It looks like these folks might have some available.

>

> http://www.drkangformulas.com/herbs.htm

>

> Kim

>

> On 10/19/07, <acukath<acukath%40gmail.com>>

> wrote:

> >

> > golden needle is no longer able to import wu ling zi (fda ban: they

> > don't see injesting flying squirrel feces as a safe practice for the

> > American public). i've found it in granules from qualiherbs. does anyone

> > know of a bulk herb supplier that has it? i've got a pound on hand, but

> am

> > thinking maybe i should stock up a supply.

> >

> > kath

> >

> > --

> >

> > Oriental Medicine

> > Experienced, Dedicated, Effective

> >

> > Asheville Center For

> > 70 Woodfin Place, Suite West Wing Two

> > Asheville, NC 28801 828.258.2777

> >

kbartlett<kbartlett%40AcupunctureAsheville.com><kbartle\

tt%40AcupunctureAsheville.com>

> > www.AcupunctureAsheville.com

> >

> >

[Guest guest]

Hi Greg, Kath and Kim,

 

I'll come clean. I'm the guy at Asia Naturals along with Dr. Liang.

Dr. Liang travels in China (even as I write) while I conduct business

mostly with manufacturers and distributors. We have chosen to not try

to bring limited-use zoologicals through USDA customs. There's a lot

of up front work that we can do in China and in cooperation with the

USDA and the FDA to make things work with herbs. When the market for

an item is so minuscule, it does not warrant months of advanced and

sometimes expensive efforts.

 

You must realize that when you study CM in San Francisco, L.A. or NYC,

you have at your disposal a local Chinese culture, with people

traveling back and forth to China. Go to many of the herb shops in

Chinatowns and you'll find limited amounts of difficult to procure

herbs that came in someone's suitcase or checked baggage. There are

other methods of procurement such as mislabeling herbs. My company

doesn't go there or anywhere else that pushes the envelope of

legality. I'm on good speaking terms with local people working for

the FDA and USDA and some people based near Wash. DC, and I plan to

keep it that way.

 

When you as practitioners move away from those places with local

Chinatowns, you're at the mercy of distribution companies that ship

via UPS, FedEx and other such services. Since our company mostly

does business to business supply to manufacturers, distributors and

some school clinics, our supplies of any given herb are partly to

largely predicated on the usage of many companies across the U.S.

Golden Needle on the East Coast provides stellar customer service to

practitioners, which is not the central focus of Asia Naturals'

business.

 

Regarding herbs, of much greater concern than wu ling zi are more

commonly used herbs like wu wei zi, tu si zi, Chinese white ginseng,

and ma huang which are presenting us with difficulties. Each one

would be an entire editorial, so I won't go into it.

 

I have an alternate email address at herbs where I'd be

willing to discuss (very briefly) specific issues with people living

in the U.S. As stated, customer service to practitioners is the

central focus of Golden Needle, and less so the focus of Asia Natural.

So I'd refer most people to them.

 

It might also be of interest to some on this list that America and

Europe are not significant consumers of Chinese medicinal herbs as

compared to Taiwan and Japan. I doubt that America and Europe

combined are at much over 1% or 2% of Taiwan's and Japan's combined

Chinese herb usage. Nevertheless my supervisor Dr. Liang travels to

agronomists and growers in numerous provinces in order to maintain

links with growing sites. She takes a great interest in a cultural as

well as in a scholarly sense the life of the growers. The Taiwanese

and Japanese importers are more traditional business people and do not

have this sort of personal or academic interest in the growing

traditions as does Dr. Liang. She is an interesting woman to work

for. However, with Chinese herbs being such a tiny marketplace in

America, there is only so much even Dr. Liang can do to facilitate the

flow of herbs through the dual governmental and economic hurdles. We

have imported up to 520,000 kg of herbs in certain recent years (> 1

million pounds). Year 2007 has been a quieter year thus far.

 

This January, I'll be celebrating my thirteenth anniversary of working

with Dr. Liang on this facilitation of cultural flow across the

Pacific. I'm just glad to be here and glad that Chinese medicine is

still growing in America.

 

Respectfully and gratefully,

Emmanuel Segmen

 

Chinese Medicine , " Greg A.

Livingston " <drlivingston wrote:

>

> Ugh, what next? I have friends in Europe that can't get a lot of

> important herbs. I guess there's been a trend toward this in the US as

> well. Maybe Emmanuel Segmen knows something about this?

>

> Best,

>

> Greg

[Guest guest]

Hi Emmanuel,

 

Thanks for the enlightening reply. As you may recall, in the last

couple years I've been doing a bit of work for an herb exporter

located here in Hangzhou, and the bulk of the export is to Japan, with

some to Taiwan, Korea, and a small fraction going to Australia, New

Zealand, the EU, and the US. The market in thw west, like you said, is

tiny compared to Asia, especially when talking about the practitioner

market, which is miniscule. I guess these are inevitabilities, but a

real headache for serious herbalists.

 

Currently I practice at a clinic just down the road from Hangzhou's

famous Hu Qing Yu Tang apothecary, so I'm spoiled with access to more

herbs than I know how to use! Beijing Tong Ren Tang has a shop nearby

as well, so I have access to lots of high quality patents. Even when I

was practicing in San Francisco things were pretty good. I fear for

practice in the US if we go the way of some European countries, where

my friends are constantly complaining about lack of important herbs,

and trying to figure out substitutes. It's difficult to be an

effective practitioner without the medicines....

 

Greg

 

Chinese Medicine , " Emmanuel Segmen "

<susegmen wrote:

>

> Hi Greg, Kath and Kim,

>

> I'll come clean. I'm the guy at Asia Naturals along with Dr. Liang.

> Dr. Liang travels in China (even as I write) while I conduct business

> mostly with manufacturers and distributors. We have chosen to not try

> to bring limited-use zoologicals through USDA customs. There's a lot

> of up front work that we can do in China and in cooperation with the

> USDA and the FDA to make things work with herbs. When the market for

> an item is so minuscule, it does not warrant months of advanced and

> sometimes expensive efforts.

>

> You must realize that when you study CM in San Francisco, L.A. or NYC,

> you have at your disposal a local Chinese culture, with people

> traveling back and forth to China. Go to many of the herb shops in

> Chinatowns and you'll find limited amounts of difficult to procure

> herbs that came in someone's suitcase or checked baggage. There are

> other methods of procurement such as mislabeling herbs. My company

> doesn't go there or anywhere else that pushes the envelope of

> legality. I'm on good speaking terms with local people working for

> the FDA and USDA and some people based near Wash. DC, and I plan to

> keep it that way.

>

> When you as practitioners move away from those places with local

> Chinatowns, you're at the mercy of distribution companies that ship

> via UPS, FedEx and other such services. Since our company mostly

> does business to business supply to manufacturers, distributors and

> some school clinics, our supplies of any given herb are partly to

> largely predicated on the usage of many companies across the U.S.

> Golden Needle on the East Coast provides stellar customer service to

> practitioners, which is not the central focus of Asia Naturals'

> business.

>

> Regarding herbs, of much greater concern than wu ling zi are more

> commonly used herbs like wu wei zi, tu si zi, Chinese white ginseng,

> and ma huang which are presenting us with difficulties. Each one

> would be an entire editorial, so I won't go into it.

>

> I have an alternate email address at herbs where I'd be

> willing to discuss (very briefly) specific issues with people living

> in the U.S. As stated, customer service to practitioners is the

> central focus of Golden Needle, and less so the focus of Asia Natural.

> So I'd refer most people to them.

>

> It might also be of interest to some on this list that America and

> Europe are not significant consumers of Chinese medicinal herbs as

> compared to Taiwan and Japan. I doubt that America and Europe

> combined are at much over 1% or 2% of Taiwan's and Japan's combined

> Chinese herb usage. Nevertheless my supervisor Dr. Liang travels to

> agronomists and growers in numerous provinces in order to maintain

> links with growing sites. She takes a great interest in a cultural as

> well as in a scholarly sense the life of the growers. The Taiwanese

> and Japanese importers are more traditional business people and do not

> have this sort of personal or academic interest in the growing

> traditions as does Dr. Liang. She is an interesting woman to work

> for. However, with Chinese herbs being such a tiny marketplace in

> America, there is only so much even Dr. Liang can do to facilitate the

> flow of herbs through the dual governmental and economic hurdles. We

> have imported up to 520,000 kg of herbs in certain recent years (> 1

> million pounds). Year 2007 has been a quieter year thus far.

>

> This January, I'll be celebrating my thirteenth anniversary of working

> with Dr. Liang on this facilitation of cultural flow across the

> Pacific. I'm just glad to be here and glad that Chinese medicine is

> still growing in America.

>

> Respectfully and gratefully,

> Emmanuel Segmen

>

> Chinese Medicine , " Greg A.

> Livingston " <drlivingston@> wrote:

> >

> > Ugh, what next? I have friends in Europe that can't get a lot of

> > important herbs. I guess there's been a trend toward this in the US as

> > well. Maybe Emmanuel Segmen knows something about this?

> >

> > Best,

> >

> > Greg

>