Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to everyone for your submissions.
I think I'm hearing some clear lines coming out of this. One is that there should be a third category. The other is that there needs to be more resources for the health protection branch to be able to look at proper research.
Mr. D'Astolfo, you talked about front-line health care professionals reporting adverse reactions to natural health products. You said this reporting should be mandated. So you also want to make it a requirement for everyone to be asked if they are taking natural health products, because if people don't tell their physicians or their nurses, then no one knows. In the past, when anyone has suggested mandatory adverse drug reporting, the health care professionals have always argued that it would take up too much of their time. How do you see them making that time?
Second, you talked about 60% of consumers not looking for homeopathic drug ID numbers. Are you suggesting, therefore, that Health Canada do a public awareness campaign, or some sort of education campaign, to let people know that they should look for these numbers? Checking the numbers would allow people to know that the product is safe and has met the requirements of Health Canada.
With regard to the category, anyone can answer this who sees fit. If natural health products are neither food nor drug, establishing a separate category would seem a reasonable thing to do. I don't argue with you on that. But if a natural health product generates claims to therapeutic value, it could move out of the natural category and into a drug category. It would then have to be subjected to clinical trials. Do you see this as a possibility?