Microsoft word - expose the truth - oct 2012 mp letter-1.docx

Dear_______________________________ M.P./ Hon. Member/ Rt. Hon. Member
(cc: Minister of Health, Leona Aglukkaq, Deputy Minister, Glenda Yeates)
Please stop Health Canada (HC) from removing my access to more Natural Health Products (NHPs) without valid
evidence of harm! Yet another valuable NHP called nattokinase is about to be refused. It has been consumed in
fermented soybeans for more than 1000 years in Japan, and supplements have been available in Canada without
incident for two decades. As a cardiovascular aid, nattokinase safely lowers blood pressure and prevents blood
clots. The real issue is not safety, but that it competes too effectively against pharmaceuticals such as Coumadin/
Warfarin, Aggrenox, Aspirin, Heparin, Lovenox, Plavix, Pradaxa, and Xalralto, all of which have caused death.
HC keeps getting the MPs to believe that they take a risk-based approach to regulating NHPs, but this is simply not true. I can
go into any drugstore and buy more than enough Tylenol to quickly cause liver failure, or ASA to cause my intestines to
bleed, or kill myself with alcohol purchased from my corner liquor store, or cigarettes from the gas station. These are all
known killers, and no one disputes it. Yet countless thousands of NHPs used to increase health have been eliminated when
they are on record for killing ZERO Canadians ever. This completely defies logic…doesn’t it?
As Dr. Brill-Edwards, a former senior physician supervisor in charge of drug approval at Health Canada said
regarding their approval process:
“There is no question that what is going on at Health Canada does not really protect citizens. The provisions that
have just come into place are paper processes. No one, for example, at Health Canada is analyzing the product
that is actually in the bottle so you have no assurances as a citizen that what you are seeing on the label is
actually what is in the bottle. Now if Health Canada were really rigorous that’s what they would be doing. They
would be taking those kinds of safety measures. But in essence they’re putting in a paper process that will push
the small people out of the market place and leave it open for the larger pharmaceutical firms who will then come
in and try to tell us that the products are now safer. They won’t be safer because there’s no real scrutiny about
the quality of the product and the information about the product.”
Good Manufacturing Practices (GMPs), ingredient testing for purity and potency, and adequate labeling, which
manufacturers perform for each product, have made Canadian NHPs the safest in the world. Yet HC, without performing any
testing whatsoever, has denied approximately 30,000 NHP license applications strictly from behind a desk. Their verdicts
have nothing to do with whether a product is actually safe, but simply whether they can find fault with its application. The
only testing the agency does is on products manufactured in China…not Canada. They are often polluted, and when HC
broadcasts their findings it reinforces doubt in consumers and politicians, and helps justify having eliminated so many high-
quality domestic NHPs. HC has also foreshadowed their intentions for enforcement by reminding industry that given
new evidence that an NHP may pose a risk, they will retract NPNs. Once started, where will this process end?

HC claims to have approved over 50,000 products, but they artificially inflate this total by repeatedly counting the exact same
product each time it is sold under a different label. (In this way, the same product may be counted 50 or more times.) What is
shocking is that they have licensed fewer than 40,000 products, when we started with 70,000+ in 2004. Also consider tens of
thousands of blocked U.S. imports, and then ask yourself: Was it really Parliament’s intention to eliminate Canadians’ NHP
choices by more than half?

If the eliminated NHPs were so dangerous why did HC allow their sale while their applications were being
processed? For example, nattokinase and others have been sold without incident ever since the Regulations started
in 2004. Why? Because they’re not dangerous. If a natural ingredient is actually dangerous, it is removed immediately
and listed either on the Prohibited Substances in the Food and Drug Regulations, or the Restricted Substances not in the
Food and Drug Regulations. Furthermore, medication interactions can be easily addressed with adequate labeling, and as for
efficacy, surviving market pressures for eight years is evidence enough. With zero deaths, obviously Canadian-manufactured
NHPs are extremely safe relatively speaking, and therefore fall outside of HC’s regulatory jurisdiction.
Why has this happened? In 2004, HC ignored Parliament’s multi-year process that taxpayers funded. They ignored the Standing Committee on Health, and instead of giving NHPs their own unique third category, as instructed, they placed them as a subclass of “Drugs”, and applied standards that they knew thousands of non-patentable NHPs would never be able to meet. Meanwhile, HC has issued NPNs to hundreds of pharmacy items such as nicotine patches, Ex-Lax, and TUMS, while forcing authentic NHPs to reformulate, yielding less effective products. As soon as healthy food ingredients like ginger or parsley are put into capsules, they magically become “Drugs”. Why? Because the definition of a “Drug is based on what a substance is used for, NOT what it is. It could be sawdust, but if you swallowed it to modify a physical function, then it’s a “Drug”. As such, it is forced to make a claim, then
to prove it, and then to add unrealistically ominous warnings to its label, which scare consumers and make them more likely
to seek refuge in “tested”, “safe” pharmaceuticals.that kill people! In this way HC censors our actions, while pretending to
protect us from substances that have been used for millennia. And the pharmaceutical industry, in an insidious partnership
with HC, maintains a stranglehold of control over healthcare. The real issue is money and control, not safety. But
then again, many of you already know this. The question is: when are you going to do something about it?
As a voting Canadian citizen who pays HC with my taxes I want you to do whatever is necessary to Stop HC from
removing any more NHPs without concrete evidence of danger! As opposed to simply needing “reason to believe
that an NHP may pose a risk”, i.e. they can restrict whatever they want, given NHPs safety record, if a product
is produced in a licensed facility under GMPs the onus should be on HC to prove that it does pose a risk.
Thank-you for your time and attention. Please reply in writing to the above concerns, as well as those listed below. Signed______________________ Print name_________________________ Date______________________ Constituency_________________________________________ Address____________________________________________________________________________ (Tri  -­‐fold  line,  please  tape,  no  staples)                            ____________________   POSTAGE  
________________________M.P.  
House  of  Commons  
Parliament  Buildings  
Ottawa,  Ontario  
K1A  0A6  
(Tri  -­‐fold  line,  please  tape,  no  staples)  
 
 
 

Source: http://naturalhealthfreedomcanada.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/Expose-the-Truth-Oct-2012-MP-letter-1.pdf