It's all about the NHPs
20 February 2023
The proposed Therapeutic Products Bill is currently at the Select Committee stage in parliament, and the committee is looking for feedback via its submissions process. For the first time maybe since the repealed Quackery Prevention Act of 1908, this legislation will attempt to police “alternative medicine”. Almost everything about regulating Natural Health Products (abbreviated to NHPs in this legislation) is new territory. The main issue with this bill, at least from our reading of it, seems to be that the government considers evidence of historical use of an NHP treatment for a condition to be “substantiation” of any health claims about it. So, basically, if a natural health product has been used in the past for treating a medical condition, whether it actually helps or not, the government will just assume that it is effective. This, to my mind, is reckless and dangerous.