Bill C-420

Herbal supplements bill hard to swallow for critics

Dear Mr. Jeffrey:

As a former executive officer and honorary lifetime member of the Canadian Health Food Association with over 37 years in the health food industry, your comments to CanWest (item below) regarding the import of Bill C420 - if indeed they are your comments - are utter balderdash.

The unjustified reference to Frankenfoods - is malicious. Itf not exposing a thinly disguised hostility towards this industry it certainly reveals an utter ignorance concerning its organic roots.

Newly appointed Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh is a long time friend of mine. However, his comments predictably reflect the influence of senior bureaucrats - and pro Big Pharma policies of the Martin cabinet that slops over from the Chretien days - who have always had a hostile agenda toward the health food industry.

Access to information revealed two audits of Health Canada carried out in the 1980's bears this fact out when on each occasion they exposed Health Canada for wasting too much time, money and personnel regulating the health food industry which gives Health Protection the least amount of problems regarding health and safety issues and too little attention towards "Big Pharma" where the greatest problems arise in death and damage.

Since 1998 to the present - more than 14 (Health Canada and US FDA approved ) drugs and a vaccine have had to be removed from the market because of death and damage.

Bill C420 will not, as you ignorantly state, " dangerously weaken oversight of an already loosely policed industry, and hamstring regulators if a product turns out to be poorly manufactured or harmful to human health." As a one who participated in reviewing those guidelines in the early 1980s at the invitation of Health Canada I can assure you Bill C420 will not impact on good manufacturing practices in any way what so ever.

Since the greatest problem in food safety in Canada has more to do with drugs, peanuts and food additives such as aspartame - the latter seems to be off your radar screen and that of your U.S. counterpart - it is certain you have a paucity of knowledge when it comes to the natural health industry and its history. Where are the bodies? Ephedrine has always been mainly a drug store and sports performance item. The use of the Chinese herb Mahuang had nothing to do with synthetic Ephedrine which is falsely used to hammer health products as "unsafe."

Since you "had the ear" of Can West, why are you not concerned about the false media stories about vitamins E, C and A emanating from Big Pharma's New York PR agency. The failure of a research challenged media to investigate and expose the lies for what they are. Report the difference between Beta Carotene and vitamin A.

Such gratuitous comments as �It�s one thing to select food because it�s got whole grains or extra calcium, it�s quite another to be consuming St. John�s Wort in your breakfast cereal� are fallacious and totally uncalled for. You speak more like a shill for the drug industry than for any so called public interest organization.

What Bill C420 does make possible is the right to make legitimate health claims for products - since people have the right to free speech and the right to know .

Croft Woodruff
Vancouver

Herbal supplements bill hard to swallow for critics
Effort to loosen guidelines passes crucial vote in House
BY SARAH STAPLES

Canada�s food supply could be permanently altered by future generations of �frankenfoods� laced with medicinal ingredients, warn critics of a controversial bill that passed a critical House of Commons vote yesterday.

Bill C-420 eases Health Canada rules governing the herbal supplements industry. The act to amend the Food and Drugs Act, would reclassify herbs and dietary supplements as foods, instead of regulating them as a subcategory of pharmaceuticals.

The bill, sponsored by Colin Carrie, a Conservative MP for Oshawa, Ont., applies to products from echinacea for cold and flu, to folic acid supplements recommended for pregnant women, to multivitamins and minerals aimed at cancer or depression.

Homeopathic remedies that have been sold safely for thousands of years would be cheaper, and Canadians would have more access to natural products if manufacturers are no longer subject to outdated rules, argued Mr. Carrie.

He said the current system is punitive in dealing with the makers of natural remedies relied on by many Canadians.

�Supplements are mostly concentrations of foods, and they�ve been putting companies out of business,� Mr. Carrie said, referring to recent cases where Health Canada has brought charges against makers of popular dietary supplements. �We�re trying to protect Canadians but do it reasonably.�

Although private members bills don�t typically garner wide support, Bill C-420 came to a surprise vote yesterday at the �second reading� stage, and was referred, with support across all party lines, to the standing committee on health.

Observers predict it could become law as early as next year.

But critics, including Health Minister Ujjal Dosanjh, warn if the legislation passes it will dangerously weaken oversight of an already loosely policed industry, and hamstring regulators if a product turns out to be poorly manufactured or harmful to human health.

�You could have unsafe products coming onto the market that Health Canada wouldn�t know about until long after the fact, and would be left scrambling to do product recalls,� said Bill Jeffery, national co-ordinator of the Centre for Science in the Public Interest, an advocacy group based in Ottawa.

Defining natural remedies as food may also lead to bizarre, �medicinal� food combinations appearing on grocery shelves, whose components might interfere with drugs consumers are taking, Mr. Jeffery argued.

�It�s one thing to select food because it�s got whole grains or extra calcium, it�s quite another to be consuming St. John�s Wort in your breakfast cereal,� he said.

�Transforming supermarkets into drug dispensaries is a real concern with this bill.�

But Mr. Carrie said although federal regulations would �have to be tweaked a little bit,� they would still enforce good manufacturing practice.

Research by conservative think-tank Fraser Institute and the federal government�s own health committee has concluded the more than 60,000 natural health products consumed annually in Canada pose �virtually negligible� risk, while prescribed pharmaceuticals, or offthe-shelf drugs such as Aspirin and cough syrup, kill more than 10,000 Canadians a year.

According to Mr. Jeffery, at least 155 deaths in North America in recent years linked to the diet herb ephedra underscore the need for continued vigilance of the industry.

�The message seems to be getting across that consumers are being denied lifesaving products that pose no health risks,� he said, �but I don�t think that�s the case at all.�