Health Committee on Oct. 29th, 2024

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Dr. Sharma, among the order-making powers of Vanessa's Law, you mention the prohibition against individuals making false or misleading statements or providing false information to the department. I find it hard to believe that you need Vanessa's Law to impose these bans. Am I wrong?

[Dr. Supriya Sharma]

There already are provisions in the Food and Drugs Act around advertising. For example, subsection 9(1) of the act says you can't make an erroneous or untrue representation of a product. However, if NHPs were not in Vanessa's Law, the maximum fine if a company did not then remove the advertising or misinformation would be $5,000.

That's one example of how Vanessa's Law provisions with respect to fines and penalties would directly help us with enforcement on the misinformation and disinformation side of things.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Since you believe that you can't come to an agreement with the pharmaceutical industry so that bad companies have harsher penalties than those that currently exist, we really need Vanessa's Law.

Earlier, I asked you whether there were more adverse effects for pharmaceutical products, and you answered yes. By placing natural health products in the same category as therapeutics, prescription drugs, gene therapies and vaccines, do you really consider that the level of risk is equivalent?

[Dr. Supriya Sharma]

Natural health products are treated differently from other products through the natural health products regulations. The Vanessa's Law provisions do not change that. There's a different set of assessments for approvals for natural health products. There are requirements for good manufacturing processes and there are a lot of provisions, and those are staying.

Vanessa's Law, just for the purpose of serious and imminent threats on specific issues, like recalls or mandating a label change for something serious, brings them into the therapeutic product category, but it doesn't mean they're treated the same way.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

So, if we amend the bill, you recognize that natural health products need to be treated separately, and the objectives are being met.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Do you want to respond, Dr. Sharma?

[Dr. Supriya Sharma]

I think it's up to the committee members if they want to provide some amendments.

We're really here to speak to the technical questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you.

The final round of questions for this panel will come from Mr. Julian for two and a half minutes, please.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I just wanted to reiterate what I've asked for and what you've committed to bring back.

First, I've asked for the results of those three companies that were non-compliant, whether those companies are still in business or whether they've had their licences suspended. What actions and tools were used by Health Canada over that period with these three companies that were non-compliant? What's the number of adverse impacts connected to natural health products among the 31 warnings that were issued? It would all be very helpful, I think, for members of the committee to consider.

Now, Ms. Hollett, you were speaking earlier about the three categories. You spoke to category I, which was immediate, with a 24- to 48-hour reaction time. I would like you to speak to categories II and III as well. I'm assuming that the 31 public warnings were all category I, but I just wanted to clarify that and get your confirmation.

[Linsey Hollett]

To start with the last part of your question, usually—and by that I mean the vast majority of the time—if we are publicly communicating on a risk issue, we are talking about type I. However, we do communicate on type II on occasion. I will just give a quick example: If the risk is specific to or heightened for a vulnerable subpopulation, then we communicate on type II as well. We very rarely, if at all, communicate on type III.

There are two things that we're talking about in tandem. When I talk about type I, II and III, I'm speaking of risk. With colleagues, scientific experts at Health Canada, we determine the level of risk. Then that correlates to what I was speaking about earlier, which are service standards or the time that we take, for instance, to first action or to expecting action on behalf of the company.

In type II, it can be quite a range because, again, even if a risk is determined in general to be type II, if we have a vulnerable subpopulation that we're speaking of, then the timelines and what we deem reasonable could be very similar to type I in terms of its immediacy. Therefore, really, in that type II category there are a lot of factors. I can tell you that the criteria that go into what we deem reasonable are, obviously, the nature of the risk, vulnerable subpopulation, how much of a product has been sold in Canada and how widespread its use is.

Then, in type III, definitely the lowest of risks, we have more time—perhaps two, three weeks—but we still look for progress on the part of the regulated party: What is their plan? What is the critical path for implementing that plan? Even though the timeline is expanded, there are milestones along that timeline when we would expect to see certain progress met.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you, Ms. Hollett.

That concludes our rounds of questions.

Please don't run away, colleagues. We have a couple of housekeeping matters to deal with.

To all of our witnesses, as always, thank you for your patience and professionalism in presenting to us today. Thank you for your service to Canada. You're welcome to stay, but you're free to leave.

Colleagues, there are three things.

Because we didn't get to the breast cancer screening report last week, it has been postponed to November 28.

We have two more meetings left for the opioid study. The witness panels for both have been confirmed, but we should set a date for the submission of briefs. I suggest Friday, November 22, for the submission of briefs on the opioid study. Is everyone okay with that?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

Thank you.

Finally, as this is something that should be dealt with in camera, I don't propose to raise it here, but I simply alert you that you're going to be receiving an email with respect to a group called “advancing cervical cancer screenings international consensus group”. It includes a professor from France who wants to meet with us in some format. Please pay attention to the email and get back to us, because it is time-sensitive but also sensitive enough that we shouldn't be discussing it in public.

That's all I have for you. Is it the will of the committee to adjourn the meeting?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Sean Casey]

The meeting is adjourned.