Health Canada undermines balanced healthcare

In last month’s Common Ground I wrote an article explaining how, in my opinion, the new Natural Health Product (NHP) Regulations were illegal. I had also voiced my concern that these new Regulations were driving NHPs from the market and that if consumers did not wake up they would find that the NHPs they rely on for their health have disappeared.

Recently, in preparation for a court matter, I conducted legal research into the instances when the state can force people to take psychiatric drugs against their will. I was horrified to learn that, in certain situations, the state can force someone to take psychiatric drugs which, aside from putting them in a mental fog, carry a list of side effects that most of us would not be willing to risk. Particularly troubling for me was a finding by the Ontario Court of Appeal in the case of Fleming v. Reid, which stated that the “… most potentially serious side effect of anti-psychotic drugs is a condition known as tardive dyskinesia. This is a generally irreversible neurological disorder characterized by involuntary, rhythmic and grotesque movement of the face, mouth, tongue and jaw.”

After doing this research, it occurred to me that the state’s ability to force us to take psychiatric drugs and the attack by Health Canada on the NHP industry are related. Both flow from a belief that the mainstream pharmaceutical medical model should be imposed on us because it is good for us – the same rationale used by the courts when they order that the state can force us to take psychiatric drugs. When NHPs are driven from the market because they do not or cannot comply with pharmaceutical drug-style regulations, it is obvious that the natural health model does not have the same privileges as the pharmaceutical drug model.

Let me give you two examples: In 2002, Health Canada ordered the stopsale of all products containing kava, a plant native to the South Pacific. Kava has been widely recognized as a natural

by Shawn Buckley

treatment for things like anxiety and the root is traditionally used to make tea. I say traditionally used, as kava is widely consumed in the South Pacific and Canadian tourists in Hawaii can drink it legally at kava tea shops.

Health Canada’s pretext for taking kava off the market is that it caused liver toxicity. I have not researched the reports, but I spoke to Ralph Pike, the head of a health action group in England, who has. According to Mr. Pike, an elderly man who was on several pharmaceutical drugs for various health problems died during the night. The next day the public health nurse noticed a pot of kava tea on the counter and an adverse

It is obvious that the natural

health model does not have

the same privileges as the

pharmaceutical drug model .

reaction report was filed. The result: no kava allowed in Canada. No pharmaceu tical drugs were banned, however.

Let’s leave aside that kava is being safely consumed in South Pacific countries and the US. The real problem with Health Canada’s knee-jerk reaction is that it ignores the risk caused by removing a natural treatment for anxiety from the market. Canadians who were safely using kava for conditions such as anxiety were forced to use pharmaceutical drugs instead and they now have to deal with the drugs’ side effects.

Similarly, in 2003, Health Canada targeted another NHP, EMPowerplus, a vitamin and mineral treatment for bi-polar disorder. Health Canada took many steps to remove this product from the market. It issued public warnings. It raided the manufacturer TrueHope Nutritional Support. It seized and turned shipments away at the border. It charged TrueHope for selling a drug without a Drug Identification Number.

Arguably the world expert in treat ing bi-polar disorder with pharmaceutical drugs, Dr. Charles Popper was subpoenaed to testify at the trial. Popper teaches doctors to become psychiatrists at Harvard University and he has pioneered pharmaceutical drug treatments for mental illness conditions in children. He is the only psychiatrist that Harvard permits to have a clinical practice in its hospitals. He gets bi-polar patients that other psychiatrists cannot handle. continued on p. 3 1