– by Shawn Buckley
As published in Common Ground, March 7, 2019
Health Canada has been restricting access to natural products. This has happened before. Back in the 1990s, Health Canada had been restricting access to natural products by insisting on strict compliance with chemical drug regulations. More onerous regulations were about to be imposed. Canadians rebelled, forcing the government to back down.
Now, in 2019, Health Canada is in stealth attack mode. The regulation of natural products is getting ever stricter. The government has announced it will impose more onerous regulations which will further restrict our access to natural products. They will also restrict our access to truthful information about them. Instead of having freedom of choice and the broadest range of options available, consumers are being driven into a drug model where it is illegal to:
- treat a serious illness with a natural product, and
- share truthful information about natural products.
Read more here.
The article is extremely short on specifics. It looks like corporate fear mongering. People are spending a lot of money on absolutely worthless concoctions and somebody is making a lot of money. Don’t forget that alt-med products are made and sold by corporations, too.
And who are you?
Have you heard the warnings on pharmaceuticals?
We need to have a choice. I believe big pharma has more dangerous and useless drugs than we really know.
The corporations that sell vitamins are dwarfed by big Pharma… Not even close…
Is there a petition to sign?
Lorraine, ask your local health food store if they have the petition. If they don’t, send them to nhppa.org to download it.
Red yeast rice is a natural treatment to lower cholesterol. The yeast produces a compound identical to lovastatin which is a prescription drug but in purified form with known dose. The line between natural and chemical is not so clear. Many of our medications are derived from natural compounds.
As a physician I have seen as many episodes of liver toxicity from supplements and so called natural treatments as I have from prescription drugs.
It’s well documented that many natural products do not contain what is on the label. They contain more or less than the stated amount of the active ingredient or they are adulterated. Often with prescription drugs that are known to work. There is a similar problem with incorrect strengths for compounded bioidentical hormone creams.
We need better regulation of these products. I advise patients to treat them the same as drugs.
This agency is calling for more scrutiny of vaccines which are well studied and less scrutiny of so called natural products. Seems hypocritical to me.
I have the rights and freedoms to have full access to natural products without government interference. Health Canada should focus it’s efforts on getting poisons and chemicals out of our food, air, water and vaccines.