The Office of Natural Health Products: Ambiguous, Illogical, Unnecessary

The preliminary process to establishing a "regulatory framework" for the Office of Natural Health Products is costing us. Ten million dollars, in fact. Not to mention the time, energy and effort of those in the health food and natural supplement industry--as well as consumers--who are saying to Health Canada, "Wait a minute. This is going too far, too fast! Where are you taking us?"

This new office is, we are told, designed to protect consumers from unscrupulous manufacturers of herbal products and from harmful herbs. The truth is that most of us can look after our welfare better than government can. We have our best interests at heart! We’re not stupid, we’re just confused. And most of our confusion stems from government regulation in the first place!

Canadian consumers never asked for a new government office to regulate natural health products. What we want is better access to the natural remedies of our choice without government interference; and the freedom for herbal manufacturers to provide information about the remedies without government persecution. We were alarmed and confused a few years ago at Health Canada’s long list of herbs labelled "restricted" because of "pharmacological action." It’s because of this action that we take herbs in the first place. Herbs work! Indigenous people have known that for generations. So have our grandparents and great-grandparents. That’s where our traditional herbal wisdom came from!

But then we had the slow take-over of natural remedies by a drug-based system, fathered by the international pharmaceutical companies. And we got the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) foisted on us by conspiring US and Canadian government leaders. We became enmeshed in a strangling system that cut us off at all exits. It was a problem--created by government--who then jumped in with the solution: take supplements out of the Food and Drug Act, regulate them separately from both food and drugs and create another category.

Seeking Consumer Input
The Canadian federal government is spending an initial $10 million of your money to "seek your input" on how the regulatory framework for natural products should be administered--and sucking you into believing you are really part of the process. The media and PR campaign accounts for some of that $10 million. The campaign is called "a new vision of wellness."

Then there’s the travel and accommodation expenses for the new Director General Phil Waddington and his team of four colleagues as they travel to seven regional centres "seeking" input from the Canadian people. They got an unexpected earful in Vancouver last August.

"Leave our supplements alone," they were told. "If you’re concerned about quality control of herbal products, do your job properly--open up Health Canada’s laboratories and start random testing. It’s dangerous to make any changes to the Food and Drug Act until Health Protection Branch bureaucrats are exposed and held accountable for abuses in the Drug Directorate."

Is anyone listening?

Sure, Health Canada, via its emissaries promoting the Office of Natural Health Products, will listen to the people--providing no one says that the proposed office is redundant, expensive and should be scrapped before good money is thrown after bad!

Money is not available in the health care budget for good food and vitamins for old folk, for clean water, for preventive medicine--but bucks are there for bureaucrats to grow fat on more bureaucracy!

The Office of Natural Health Products is a smoke-screen for a government initiative to spearhead global standardization of vitamin potencies (via Codex); to facilitate corporate control under the guise of free trade (via NAFTA); and pave the path for foreign companies to take over Canadian businesses (via the Multilateral Agreement on Investments).

There were only two sessions held in BC, both in a small room in Simon Fraser University’s downtown location in Vancouver. About 300 people came. The rest were on vacation--or didn’t know about it. Health Canada wanted everything wrapped up by the end of September, so by the time Canadians got back to town and the kids were in school--it was all over.

I suggest you demand a moratorium on this railroading of the Office of Natural Health Products. The Director General’s phone number is (613) 952-2558. The Web site for the Office of Natural Health Products is . Letters can be addressed to the Office of Natural Health Products, Health Protection Branch, 171 Slater St, 9th Floor/3709B, Ottawa, Ontario, K1P 5H7.