What’s going on with Natural Health Products in Canada?

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 …Read More