Stop Health Canada From Taking Away Your Natural Health Products
Health Canada is reevaluating its standards and processes for “self-care products” available to Canadian consumers. They propose to regulate cosmetics, NHPs, and non-prescription drugs under the same set of regulation.
These unnecessary changes will treat all natural health products (NHP’s) like pharmaceutical drugs. This over-regulation will negatively impact how NHP developers, manufacturers, and distributors do business, forcing a downstream effect on retailers and consumers.
What does this mean for you?
- Reduced selection as manufacturers will have to scale back production
- You will lose your right to access products that support your wellbeing
- Fewer innovative products introduced to market
- Less research and development of products
- Forced to buy from unregulated foreign markets
- See costs rise for products you use everyday such as toothpaste, over the counter products, deodorants and sunscreen just to name a few
- Shrinking workforces in all sectors of the industry
You can learn more about the proposed changes.
Health Canada is currently looking for feedback from consumers and manufacturers and will close to new input on July 26, 2023, at 11:59pm Eastern Daylight Time (EDT).
HERE IS A LITTLE INSIGHT ON WHAT RESEARCHERS, DEVELOPERS, DISTRIBUTORS AND MANUFACTURERS OF ALL NATURAL HEALTH PRODUCTS ARE UP AGAINST:
Proposed fee structure and fee amounts
- Fee amounts increase operation costs to pharmaceutical levels without pharmaceutical profit margins
- Annual licensing fees for licenses that are valid for up to 3 years
- Fees when new evidence is presented that would improve claims
- No clarity on the retroactively charging for existing licenses
- New annual fees for every license held
Proposed service standards and penalties for missed standards
- Submission for Information Request Notice (IRN) gives regulators a reason for delaying application process
- Regulators are not increasing speed or efficiency of service but still increasing cost of service.
- Fees for new auditor teams but no increased approval time
Proposed mitigation measures, including for small businesses
- Manufacturers more likely to sell to large pharmaceutical corporations or leave Canada
- Will encourage companies to limit hiring and scale back workforce in a large industry with many stakeholders
We need your support to urge the Minister of Health to work with the industry to re-examine the cost recovery approach used to balance the 2023 budget. Until July 26, 2023 Health Canada is looking for feedback regarding the proposed changes. You can have your say by filling out the Consultation on Natural Health Products Fee Proposal.
You can also contact your member of Parliament (MP) and let them know that you disagree with the proposed changes using a simple prefilled form here: https://www.saveoursupplements.ca/get-involved