I don't think we can say. The reason is that it's somewhat hidden. The reason the NHPPA started taking testimonies last year, with videos for people to watch, is that we have 100% censorship. When it's a drug, it gets approved for a label claim. Vitamin C might have that it maintains teeth and bones. You can't say anything else. You can have peer-reviewed published research. You can have government-funded research. You can't say anything else.
Perhaps I can put into context the safety issue, if you don't mind. In risk analysis, if a class of products causes only one death per million of a population per year, then it's considered de minimis, or ultra safe. You don't even dare regulate at that level, because the safety signal is so low that you can't tell whether or not you're making a difference. Well, we included in the NHPPA brief a risk analysis by Professor Ron Law, an expert in risk analysis, using Canadian government statistics. This was just before our regulations came into force. Canadians were 17 times more likely to be struck by lightning than to be harmed by a natural health product.
Now, we would not put lightning poles all over Canada to try to reduce lightning strikes, which are one in four million, because we couldn't measure if we were making a difference. The safety signal is too low. We are so much lower than that. Never before has such a.... Like, why are we regulating these at all? It feels like we should be asking how many angels can dance on the end of a pin.
