The Attack on Natural Health Products

July 7, 2023

Vanessa Young.

Does that name ring a bell to you? Probably not.

She was a 15-year-old Ontario teenager who died in 2000 of cardiac arrhythmia after taking a drug she was prescribed called cisapride (in Canada this is known as Prespulsid). She was given the drug because she had a stomach disorder.

Her dad, a federal politician, spearheaded amendments to the Food and Drug Act in Canada in response to what happened to his daughter. The purpose of the amendment was to help protect Canadians from risks related to drugs and medical devices. This is known as Vanessa’s Law (Protecting Canadians from Unsafe Drugs Act) and gives Health Canada the power to collect safety information and take proper action when a serious risk becomes known. Woven in there is also the power to order recalls and impose tougher penalties for unsafe products as well as label revision and more product testing.

Until now, this has not applied to natural health products (NHP).

Rightly so. You are fourteen times more likely to be struck by lightning than to die from a NHP ( your risk of being struck by lightning is one in a million to give further perspective to that risk).

There is such a minimal risk of having a serious reaction from an NHP that one can say it is zero.

Take too much magnesium and you may get diarrhea. Take too much vitamin B and your urine will be bright yellow. And so on.

The data shows that since 1965, only a handful of deaths have been loosely attributed to NHPs.

Chemical interventions can’t say the same.

Why does this matter now?

There's been a big, sneaky change.

On June 22, 2023, Bill C-47, proposed by the Canadian federal government, passed the third reading in the Senate, received royal assent and is now Law.

This Budget bill has sections 500 through 504 inclusive tucked away in the bowels of the document, which directly impact NHPs. In essence, NHPs now fall under the same scrutiny as chemical products.

The government did not differentiate this into a separate bill so it could be debated properly…and accurately. No, it underhandedly snuck the details of this change into a different bill.

I have been actively listening to the information presented by the main lawyer (Shawn Buckley) over the last few weeks as it was becoming apparent what was happening. He states that economists would call what is happening a rent-seeking exercise. This means policy is manipulated as a strategy for increasing profits. In this situation, this means the regulations get stricter so that only the large players can survive. In essence, it creates a quasi-monopoly.

Any regulatory process is a burden to the entity or person that is regulating. It is expensive and time-consuming. In the end, the regulatory process drives out the competition. The larger players in the industry don’t mind this at all because it thins out the competition. The regulatory body (in this case, the federal government) gets to collect fees from the industry. This grows their coffers so that they continue to grow the bureaucracy.

Rinse and repeat.

This is all further explained by cost recovery. The bureaucracy makes money by charging each company fees to manufacture, distribute, import, and then apply for licensing to sell the product.

The magnitude of the fees will drive small manufacturers out of business. The increased regulatory burden will put more of the medium-sized ones out of business. The estimate is that in the next two years, only the big companies will be left in the market.

This will do a couple of things at the consumer level. First, it will decrease the available products for the consumer to buy. Secondly, the products that the consumer will be able to buy will be expensive and perhaps cost-prohibitive to even purchase.

Then there are the changes for the NHP practitioner.

Under this new law, the practitioner is now only allowed to speak on the information about the product that is mentioned on the label. They will no longer be able to speak about the efficacy of a product through traditional use evidence. Said another way, Health Canada will fine the practitioner if they are sharing a truthful comment about a product.

If the practitioner can’t tell the public how a product can help them, how will the public know to take the product?

This is another way to squash the NHP market.

If the practitioner does share information about a product, the fine to do so just got a whole lot bigger. What was $5,000 per offence (which could last over a longer period of time) just became 5 million dollars for each day the offence continues! That is not a typo! If it is a company that is guilty of this breach of Health Canada's regulations, each director, officer or employee of said company is also said to be liable, to the tune of 5 million dollars a day.

This will make pushing back on this law almost impossible and financially not viable.

There will always be shelves of vitamins but any NHPs which are used for meaningful purposes will be gone. With how this has been set up as law, many natural health practitioners will also be gone in the two years that this will take to fully roll out their plan.

The practitioner won’t have access to the natural remedies that people use. Nor will they be able to compound anything for use. Nor will they be able to properly share any useful information.

Add to this Canada's recent censorship bill passed by the current government and I hope that you can sense the gravity of what is happening.

This is serious.

If you would like to read information about the NHP quandary in Shawn Buckley's discussion paper, it is located here on the National Health Products Protection Association (NHPPA) website.

There will be some that say that the NHP community has been down this path before, a couple of times, so not to worry. Yes, that is true. There have been struggles before that were successfully pushed back on. This is another level of concern because it is already law and some parts of it already enforceable. The full plan will be implemented by April 1, 2025.

NHP are very low risk. Health Canada’s “self-care” framework doesn’t take into consideration what happens when a NHP is not available. Health Canada and the government don’t take into account the risk of taking the product off the market.

This has nothing to do with your health and nothing to do with risk. This has to do with control. This ties into the WHO’s revised International Health Regulations. I recommended a John Campbell podcast about these regulations in a prior P-Q-R Bulletin that can be found here. Canada is not the only nation that has agreed to the revised IHR. This will be a binding treaty so a country’s citizens doesn't have sovereignty over their own bodies. The push is for “One Health” with the revised IHR.

And it doesn’t mean yours.

Thus, what is happening with our NHP community is part of the bigger picture.

As an example, in other countries, NHPs are already being restricted. In Spain, it is difficult to find NHPs outside of the major city centers. You can be certain that this is beginning to happen in other countries as well.

What can you do?

• Visit the NHPPA website and get informed. When one understands more fully what is happening, it is easier to stand up and be empowered to aid in this movement. There are videos on the site to watch that are highly informational. The discussion paper I reference above is a great overview. Shawn Buckley is the president of the NHPPA and head legal counsel with the NHPPA. His area of expertise is constitutional law and the Food and Drug Act. He has been involved with pushing back on NHP regulations for over twenty years and is extremely well-versed in describing the gravity of what is happening. He is articulate and passionate about your freedom. As an aside, if you have followed the National Citizens Inquiry, you will recognize his name as he was the main moderator of the eight hearings that visited eight Canadian cities from March 2023 to May 2023.

• In Canada, it is quite possible that most Members of Parliament don’t have a clue that this was buried in the Budget bill that just became law. As this is already law, the public needs to apply pressure on their MPs to repeal sections 500 to 504. A personal visit to your local MP would be most desired. Next best would be a phone call. Then a personal letter. Make some noise. At this point, Shawn Buckley says that this will have little impact on what is already in motion. But it can't hurt.

• Consider donating to the NHPPA. This helps fund the resistance to what is happening. This isn’t just going to be devastating for health practitioners. Consumers will also be deeply affected. Your choice of NHP won't be there if this carries through as it is intended. You won't have the choice to access products for your health. You may not be able to access what you desire.

• Don’t support the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) and their Save our Supplements (SOS) campaign. They don’t have the same end goals as the NHPPA. As Shawn has expressed, “they have a meaningless campaign and will dilute the resistance.”. The group also has taken money from the government. They are not aware of what is actually going on.

• Again, pay attention to the NHPPA website. They are planning the best way to combat this. One of the proposed thoughts is to create a community group for each of the 338 federal ridings to hold each MP accountable. As this is a very fluid situation, keep informed.

It won't matter if you are in a "private" healthcare club or if you order your NHP from a different country, Health Canada will be watching and fining as they see appropriate. Professionally, practitioners will be monitored by their own regulatory colleges. These colleges unfortunately have become enforcement arms of the bureaucracy. This has become sadly apparent to me when my own regulatory board used the profession's resources to prosecute a colleague for not wearing a mask during covid even though he had a medical exemption. Further, British Columbia has passed Bill 36 which will make it possible for a health care professional to lose their license if they do not comply with any government mandate. There are many who feel that this bill is a test and template for the rest of the provinces in the future.

What is happening is real. What is happening is not good for you.

What I have written above is specific to Canada. I know that I have subscribers from other countries. Do know that this sort of thing or similar will be happening in your country soon....if not already.

You can call me an alarmist with this. I am informed and have my finger on the pulse of what is going on. Do know that this is happening and it is very real.

Please reach out to me if you have any questions. This is an all-hands-on-deck sort of situation.

Again, sign on to the NHPPA website to get current information.

Thank you for reading.