You may have seen those mail-in postcards recently, talking about “Natural Health Products”. Over 1 million postcards were distributed to health food stores, pharmacies and natural health clinics across Canada by the Natural Health Products Protection Association (NHPPA).
Here is a brief synopsis of what’s going on with Natural Health Products (NHPs). Heatlh Canada considers NHPs to be vitamins and minerals, herbal remedies, traditional medicines (traditional Chinese/ Ayurvedic), homeopathic medicines, fatty acids, probiotics and some personal care products.
What’s going on is Health Canada has decided to control and strictly regulate NHPs in the same manner as if they were pharmaceutical drugs. It has done this by considering NHPs as “therapeutic products” in the Food and Drugs Act, whereas previously they were excluded from the definition. This is part of the “self-care framework“, put forward by Health Canada in 2016. This framework is being implemented in steps, the most recent of which was inclusion of new provisions in the 2024 Budget.
This move by Health Canada is problematic on many fronts.
Problems with Health Canada’s Moves on NHPs
First, the reframing move basically restricts the use of the NHP to a use that is set out on the product label, and this use must be backed up by hard scientific evidence. Previously, various evidence could be use to back up claims of efficacy, such as “thousands of years of use” in traditional Chinese medicine. The problem with the requirement for hard scientific evidence is that “nature” works in systemic ways that may not fit with hard scientific concepts of linear cause and effect. The move thereby eliminates access to products that work but do not fit neatly into the hard scientific paradigm.
Second, the move in effect requires provision of hard scientific studies, which are very expensive and time consuming to produce. Many players in the NHP industry will find this requirement cost prohibitive, and will in effect drop out of the Canadian market all together. This will likely leave only large firms, likely those with big pharmaceutical parent companies, to occupy the space. Supply and demand will result in price increases.
Third, the move prevents natural health practitioners from using NHPs for anything other than the use set out on the label, thereby severely restricting application of available healing remedies. This move is short-sited in that it does not even require evidence that the off-label use is ineffective. To the contrary, even if the use is effective, the Minister of Health is granted wide discretion to order the NHP not be used in such a way.
The penalties for “off-label” use are draconian – up to $5 million a day. This will have a marked cooling effect on the application of natural health product remedies.
Nothing to do with “Self-care”
Health Canada’s framework removes the ability of Canadians to make their own decisions about what health and wellness products they want to use to look after themselves. Health Canada’s justification is paternalistic: it states that “the difference [between a drug and a NHP] may not be clear to the consumer“.
Health Canada is also forcing Canadians to use products that fit into the paradigm of hard scientific evidence. This move ignores the fact that other products may be equally if not more effective, and also that Canadians may embrace forms of knowledge other than hard science (such as traditional knowledge).
In its self-care framework, Health Canada is taking the power to make choices concerning one’s own health away from individual Canadians. It is removing, not empowering, the ability of Canadians to care for themselves.
Postscript: the NHPPA has done extensive work in this area and is keeping abreast of the legislative changes occurring with the framework. More detailed information can be found on the NHPPA website.
