Mark Blumenthal is the Executive Director of the American Botanical Council (ABC), a nonprofit research and education organization in Austin, Texas. He is also the editor and publisher o HerbalGram, the quarterly journal of the ABC and the Herb Research Foundation of Boulder, Colorado, an affiliated non-profit organization.
Mr. Blumenthal has an extensive background in the area of herbs and medicinal plants with over 20 years experience as either a seller or producer of herb products, and since 1988, as an educate and researcher in his role as director of ABC.
His experience in the herb industry includes wholesaling and manufacturing herbal products and serving as a consultant to many companies in the herb industry. More specifically, he was the co founder and president of Sweethardt Herbs Inc. (1974-1986), an Austin-based wholesaler and manufacturer of herbal products; founder and president of Texas Rush Inc., (1979 to present) former bottler and marketer of a ginseng soft drink; founder and president of HotChaCha! Inc. (1980-1983), the manufacturer of the natural food industry's first salsa picante in 1980; and president of Bee Creek Botanicals (1986-1992), manufacturer of ginseng mints, bodycare products and essential oils and fragrances.
Mr. Blumenthal also has extensive experience in the non-profit area. In 1975 he was a founding board member of the Herb Trade Association (HTA) and its president in 1977. In 1983 he was a founding board member of the American Herbal Products Association (AHPA) and a founder ant vice-president of the Herb Research Foundation (EIRF). In 1988 he founded the American Botanical Council. Through his organizational affiliations Mr. Blumenthal has been a leader in the herb movement in such areas as quality control of herbal products, ethics in labeling and marketing, legal and regulatory issues, research and education.
In 1977 Mr. Blumenthal began publication of Herb News, a quarterly herb publication designed for the herb trade and allied industries and health professions, as a publication of HTA. In 1983 he founded HerbalGram, then a quarterly newsletter for AHPA and HRF. With the formation of ABC in 1988, HerbalGram became the journal of ABC and HRF.
His articles on herbs and medicinal plants have appeared in numerous magazines, including (in addition to HerbalGram) Let's Live, East-West Journal (now called Natural Health), Herbs!, Longevity, Vegetarian Times, and several medical and scientific journals including Medical Nutrition, Allergy Research, Pharmacy in History and the new American Journal of Natural Medicine. For eleven years he wrote a bimonthly column for Health Foods Business, and for the last five years he has written a monthly article for Whole Foods, a leading trade magazine for the natural foods and dietary supplement industries. He has contributed chapters on herbs to two recently published encyclopedias: Reader's Digest's Family Guide to Natural Medicine (1993) and Alternative Medicine: The Definitive Guide (future Medicine Publishing, 1994); he edited and wrote the foreword to the best-selling The Complete Medicinal Herbal by Penelope Ody (Dorling-Kindersley, 1993).
He is the senior editor of a book of translations of the Therapeutic Monographs on Medicinal Plants for Human Use of the Commission E of the Special Expert Committee Federal Health Agency of Germany which will be published by ABC in 1995.
Mr. Blumenthal also serves or has served on the editorial boards of the following publications: Vegetarian Times, Natural Health, Let's Live, Protocol Journal of Botanical Medicine, Journal of Optimal Nutrition, Nutrition Science News, and is a member of the steering committee of the U.S. Herbal Pharmacopia Project.
His consultancies include participation in the preparation of the final draft of the World Health Organization's "Guidelines for the Assessment of Herbal Medicines" (1991). He has also participated as a reviewer of research grant proposals made to the Office of Alternative Medicine at the National Institutes of Health.
Mr. Blumenthal is co-author of a series of homestudy courses in the area of phytomedicines being developed by ABC and the Texas Pharmacy Foundation for continuing education credit for pharmacists.
Mr. Blumenthal is a popular speaker on herbal issues and has made hundreds of presentations to schools, associations, and numerous consumer, pharmacy, nursing, medical, regulatory, agricultural and industry groups. He is a popular guest on radio and television talk shows and has appeared on over 200 in the past five years. He is also a major source of information for journalists, editors and freelance writers and is quoted extensively in articles in the trade and popular press.
To schedule an interview or presentation for Mark Blumenthal contact Rachel Muir at 512-3318868. For further information on the American Botanical Council and HerbalGram, call 512-331-8868 or write to the American Botanical Council, PO Box 201660, Austin, TX 78720.