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Building a Balanced Formula
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Safety and Chinese Herbs

The major steps in the manufacture of OHCO's herbal products are provided by a pharmaceutical company in Taipei, Taiwan. Established in 1946 and now the oldest and largest company of its kind in Asia, OHCO is proud to be affiliated with this fine firm.

Their long tradition allows only the highest quality herbs to be utilized in the manufacturing process. The raw herbs are imported from China via Hong Kong. Shopping at the herb market is a duty entrusted to the company's special representative. He searches stall after stall of the herb vendors. The herbs are tasted, looked at for their color, and tested for aroma and texture. Those under consideration are either wild harvested or cultivated without pesticides. We all know how important shopping is. This phase is where the magic begins in creating a unique and special herbal product.

Back at the factory each of these raw materials are again required to meet the highest standards. Once a material has passed initial inspection, it is housed in a cold-storage warehouse until needed for production. Experienced technicians then form the qualified materials into slices and inspect, grade, and subject them to a further testing process.

A vacuum extraction technique is used in preparing the formulas that is far superior to simple drying and powdering. Basically, the herbs are cooked into a tea or stew much like the process a patient would go through were he or she given a prescription from a practitioner of Oriental medicine. Perhaps, you have seen pictures of the beautiful arrays of flowers, stems, leaves, and roots which have been carefully weighed out. In one's home these are boiled into a decoction. This facilitates extraction of active ingredients, and ensures that the formula is properly adjusted in terms of its properties, and provides the synergy of the formula.

The factory duplicates on a large scale what has been done in Chinese homes for thousands of years. They cook the herbs and reduce them to a powdered form using a proprietary process that is unique and patented. The result is a concentrated product with a long shelf life.

In 1976, our manufacturer combined the traditional way of producing Chinese medicine with modern technology and achieved the GMP standard. In 1986, they were inspected by the National Health Administration and approved as the first manufacturer in Taiwan to pass the inspection. In 1988, the hardware equipment of this factory also passed the strict inspection and was designated a GMP factory. In March 1994, they also passed the critical GMP auditing conduction of Australia Therapeutic Goods Administration. All working staff have undergone special training in GMP methods.

We were lucky to be able to visit the factory in Taiwan and have seen firsthand the care and concern taken at this modern facility. The advanced scientific equipment and the testing laboratories are treated with great pride and the sanitary protections are impressive. Their products are evident in every pharmacy and hospital in Taiwan.