Now You See Them. Now You Don’t.

The January 1 2011 licencing deadline is fast approaching. Or is it?

Does a date even matter since we are in crisis now?

The most important thing for anyone reading this page is to know that once this deadline passes we can expect to see a great number of quality natural health products (NHPs) disappear from the shelves of natural health food and supplement stores.

If this seems like an exaggeration, it’s not. It’s actually an oversimplification of the issues facing the Canadian natural health industry today. The deadline comes from Health Canada’s enforcement of their 2004 regulations. Regulations imposed on low-risk NHPs, yet created for high-risk chemical drugs. These 2004 regulations allow Health Canada to force all manufacturers of NHPs to go through the long and expensive process of getting a D.I.N or N.P.N. Receiving these numbers indicate that the manufacturer has complied with Health Canada’s standards. Standards that do not meet the recommendations given to them from Parliament in 1998.

Right now, 90% of NHP’s in stores across Canada are there illegally. They are deemed illegal through Health Canada’s defense that drug-style regulations need to be imposed on NHPs to restrict access.

Passing The Buck

Obliging single person and large multi-national manufacturers have filled out all required paperwork to get these numbers (product licences). But what has occurred is that Health Canada has been unable to process licence applications within their set time frame. There are thousands and thousands of natural health products where licence applications have been filed but Health Canada has been unable to process them all. It would be unfair for Health Canada to say that they must be removed from the market for non-compliance when it is Health Canada’s fault.

To accommodate this there is a Compliance Policy under which Health Canada is allowing natural health products with licence applications in the line to stay on the market.

The drop-dead date is simply a date that Health Canada has given to end this process. As of that date it does not matter if you have had a licence application sitting at Health Canada for years or not: the natural health product may be removed from the market.

It also does not matter of these NHPs are relied upon by Canadian’s for their very health and well being. This is where government interferes with our rights and freedoms and the issue becomes very personal.

Deadline or Not

Because Health Canada has been so slow to process license applications, NHP manufacturers and retailers have not yet had to decide what they will do when the overwhelming majority of their products are deemed illegal. It is ominous that the Natural Health Product Directorate (NHPD)* has been given more funding to complete license applications and that Health Canada is hiring more enforcement officers in anticipation of an increase in enforcement activity.

Consumers are advised to stockpile NHPs that they depend on for their health.

Right now, Health Canada is going through the “easy” applications. What NHPs will be left once Health Canada is finished judging over half of these “easy” single-ingredient NHPs? Experts agree that 75% of the more complex, multi-ingredient NHPs will become illegal.

Either way, time is running out.

NHPD Performance Update

Commentary: NHPD Statistics
By Brian Wagner
May 2009

I wanted to send a quick update on the NHPD’s performance to date. I have taken a creative look at the data, and there are interesting trends to be noticed that I haven’t seen before. The NHPD has lately been saying that 2008 saw a significant increase in licensing (see page 3). This is true in the short-term as well as in the long term. Q4 statistics last month, however, suggested that the NHPD is refusing some 62% of their short-term workload (which is true). At present, the long-term trend is still an overall 50% accumulated refusal rate as of last month.

However, the backlog appears to be growing. The NHPD’s current stat reports hide this fact, because they have purposefully redefined the term “backlog” (submissions received before April 30, 2008). I am not suggesting they are covering their tracks, just that their presentation of the data is highly biased to their own targets rather than towards industry success.

As can be seen from the graph on page 4, the backlog has virtually unchanged since January of 2006 despite their attempts to improve this. The NHPD had given us “backlog” figures in their Q3 last year, which were misleading – we gladly thought the backlog was disappearing – but they were using their own defined terminology, not ours. (Thus my apologies for any confusion earlier this year when I told some of you that the backlog appeared to be disappearing; I had mistakenly trusted the NHPD’s conclusions.)

Click here to see the statistics charts...

The Chance To Change

Commentary: Canadian Retailers and Consumers of Natural Health Products Beware: our time is limited!
By John Biggs
December 2008

If you are a retailer, marketer, or consumer of natural health products (NHPs) in Canada, like me, there are national and international events unfolding that you need to be informed about as they could severely curtail our ability to compete, and/or eliminate us from the market. Before you dismiss this as fear-mongering, do yourself the service of reading the following.

Click here to read the article...

How Will The Industry Respond?

Article: Betrayed!
By Brian Wagner
Summer 2008

There is no light regulatory touch. We do not have a risk-based system. Products are not allowed to be on the market without claims. The Inspectorate still abuses their power with seizure and, with Bill C-51, they will gain even greater power. Products are “not being approved”, not because they are dangerous or contaminated. They are being banned because there are insufficient clinical trials published on their ingredients.

Click here to read the article...