Government rethinks natural health bill

Health Minister Tony Clement agreed to key demands of the natural health products industry after the sector launched a grassroots campaign against restrictions on homeopathic medicines and herbal remedies in new legislation. When amendments to the Food and Drugs Act were proposed in April, natural medicines were lumped in with pharmaceutical drugs, raising concerns they would be subject to the same type of oversight. The government is now proposing to insert a definition of natural health products into the Food and Drugs Act to recognize them as distinct from foods and drugs under the law.

“My attitude is a bill is a work in progress. Let’s see whether we are clearly getting out the things that we want to do in a particular bill. In this case, obviously protecting the health and safety of Canadians was and remains the motive for the bill,” Clement said in an interview Friday, and added that it “became clear that some things that we thought were implicit in the bill” needed to be spelled out.

“Canadians have clearly expressed the desire to recognize natural health products as a unique category of products,” a ministry backgrounder states about changes tabled in the House of Commons. As a lower-risk product than prescription drugs, the government is proposing other changes to make it clear that natural medicines will follow a different process to get to market. The new amendments make explicit mention that traditional knowledge and history of use can be considered for obtaining authorization to sell a natural health product.

These key changes come after the Canadian Health Food Association, which represents manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers in the natural products industry, organized rallies across the country calling for natural health products to be recognized as a consumer product distinct from food and drugs.

The Natural Health Products Protection Association launched a separate campaign, complaining about the “police state” powers to search private property for illegal products. After organizing demonstrations across the country last month, the campaign moved online with a “Stop Bill C-51″ Facebook group.

The government’s new amendments clarify that inspectors can only detain a product to identify or prevent a health risk or to prevent inaccurate representations. And a seized article can only be detained for the time needed to decide whether the product is dangerous.

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