Health Canada Is Restricting Your Options

[Guest guest]

The following article was written by Klaus Ferlow, herbalist, innovator,

lecturer, researcher, writer, founder and co-owner of Ferlow Botanicals

http://www.ferlowbotanicals.com/ (Vancouver), a 100% Canadian owned/operated

family

business manufacturing/distributing toxin free medicinal herbal and personal

care

products since 1993.

 

His educational articles have been published in dozens of Health Magazines

and Newsletters from Coast to Coast and numerous websites all around the world.

 

 

Health Canada Is Restricting Your Options

by Klaus Ferlow

 

http://stason.org/articles/wellbeing/health/government/Health-Canada-Is-Gambling\

-With-Your-Health.html

 

 

Traditional medicine, based on body, mind and spirit, preventing disease and

treating disease by diagnosing the cause has been here for centuries. Just

look at the Ayurvedic medicine from India with a history of almost 6000 years,

traditional Chinese medicine with thousands of years and Aboriginal medicine

(the medicine man) from around the world. Even today according to Chris Kilham,

the medicine hunter, www.medicinehunter.com over five billion people on the

Globe are using herbal remedies for healing.

 

Is it therefore any wonder why more people today visit holistic practitioners

compared to allopathic (conventional) doctors since they have lost confidence

in that system that only treats the symptoms and not the cause of the disease

and this trend excelled world wide. The latest survey showed that 71% of

Canadians, that is a total of 22.452.000 regularly take vitamins, minerals,

herbal

products, homeopathy and the like. The Pharmaceutical industry has watched

this trend over the years and did not like what they saw and influenced Health

Canada already in 1997 to come up with some new rules & regulations under

former Health Minister Allan Rock of the Liberal government, but the notion was

defeated due to an injunction by some very knowledgeable individuals from the

natural health industry. However, Health Canada came back again more than six

years ago with the argument, that the public wanted natural health products to

be

regulated to ensure their safety and efficacy. Isn't it ironic that they have

not found yet a person that died from using natural health products, but how

many people have died over the years from prescription drugs and their long

list of negative side effects? If you want more information about this subject,

I recommend to read the book " Death by Modern Medicine " from Carolyn Dean, MD,

ND, Acupuncturist, herbalist, nutritionist. She is the one that lost her

license from the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons when she criticized

her own medical profession and is now practising in New York. And here is an

interesting quote from her book: " It is against our belief system to use terms

such as alternative, complementary or CAM, except when quoting. It is

unfortunate that the medical establishment and all too many of my colleagues who

practise traditional medicine falling into the habit of calling the oldest and

most

successful form of healing by what are, in fact, demeaning names, such as

complementary and alternative. We must always remember that allopathic is only a

medical model born in the industrial age, and to suggest the oldest and most

used healing arts in the world are secondary to allopathy is not only insulting,

but inaccurate as well. These traditional methods of restoring and maintaining

maximum health, by virtue of their track record of safety and success, take

second place to no other medical model. "

 

When I asked Health Canada officials at their hearings how much it would cost

the industry by setting up a new Agency, The Natural Health Productate by hiring hundreds of civil servants, there was absolute silence.

Natural

health products were always regulated under " food " and there they should have

belonged, but some stakeholders agreed to put it into a third category and

later it leaked out that the government put it as a sub-category of drugs! The

new

rules and regulations started Jan. 1, 2004 and they have a backlog of 2 ½

years working at applications for Natural Health Product numbers (NPN) and

finally they came out of the closet asking the industry paying $3600 initially

for

each and every product applications and $ 920 for every product every year

after and gave us only a very short time to response by May 15, extended to May

25, 2007 [update: Health Canada has due to pressure from the Natural Health

Products industry extended the deadline to an unspecified date].

 

As a result of this the cost of doing business for small and medium sized

companies will increase, product margins decrease, retail prices will

dramatically increase to a point that people can't afford them, product

innovation will

decline, product quality compromised and access to products drastically

reduced. Basically it puts especially small and medium sized company on " death

row "

and many of them, if not all, will disappear and with it thousands of safe

natural health products that the consumer has relied on for many years will

completely disappear from the shelves of store, dispensary in clinics etc.

 

And this in a situation were our Health Care system is on the brink of

collapsing since it cannot financially be sustained as Rafe Mair, former Health

Minister in the B.C. government wrote in one of his articles : " The Verdict is

In!

Canada's Healthcare is Broken. We moved so far from the original intent of

Medicare that we've forgotten what it should be. "

 

Is that really what you the public wants?

 

If not, than we need all the help we can get from consumers across Canada,

get involved. Call your local MP's, sign petitions in health food stores, tell

your relatives, friends, neighbours, colleges and ACT NOW, voice your

opposition and write letters to Health Canada, speak up before you will have no

access

to many natural health products and supplements nor can't afford to buy them

anymore due to drastic price increases. For the small and medium sized

companies their survival is at stake!

 

Let me close with these wise words of wisdom from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:

" Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter. "

" The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and

convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. "

 

You can send your letters, Fax and emails to:

 

Health Canada,

Brooke Laxton Building, Tunney's Pasture,

Postal Locator 0906C,

Ottawa, ON, K1A 0K9

 

Fax: 613-952-1154, no postage stamp needed.

 

Email address for

Tony Clement, Health Minister:

Minister_Ministre

or

the Deputy Health Minister: dm_sm

 

References:

 

For further information on this subject, please contact these websites:

 

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/consultation/cri-irc/index_e.html

 

 

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/cosultation/cri-irc/business_impacy_entreprise_e.\

html

 

 

http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/dhp-mps/consultation/cri-irc/hpfb-dgpsa_co-reco_7_e.html#\

1

 

http://www.hans.org