Madam Speaker, it is my privilege to stand and speak to Bill C-420. Going back to the election campaign, I had a number of people ask me about my support for natural health products. Since that time I have had a number of constituents write to my office or call to ask what has happened with this or why have we not moved on it. I have been asked what we are doing and whether we support natural health products.
I would like to get on the record today to ensure my constituents understand that I support this. The bill is an act to amend the Food and Drugs Act. It seeks to bring herbs, dietary supplements and other natural health products under the purview of Health Canada's food directorate by amending the definitions of both “food” and “drug” in the Food and Drugs Act and to implement the recommendations the transition team of the Office of National Health Products by repealing sections 3(1) and 3(2) in schedule A of the Food and Drugs Act.
Let me go to a personal experience before I come back to the details. With an agricultural background, one may know that when an animal on the farm becomes ill, the first and main treatment veterinary medicine uses to treat that animal is proper nutrition. Usually minerals, vitamin supplements and that sort of thing are recommended to bring the animal back to a proper condition of health.
I believe over the years we have learned that this is a very good practice for us as human beings, to first look after our nutrition and perhaps to go so far as to take supplements, like they do on the farm to supplement the natural food available to those animals and to guarantee their health.
Years ago I was introduced to a natural health product. After having knee surgery, three or four months later my knee was still sore and swollen. There was a goose egg on top of my knee that was like a golf ball cut in half. I was told about a natural health product but I could only be told that it might help because it had been known to help some other people, not because there was something in it that would help.
Recommendation 19 says that natural health products should be allowed to make health claims including structure, function, claims, risk reductions, claims and treatment claims. That cannot be done right now. It cannot be said that this is usually good for arthritis or it is usually good for swollen joints. However people who sell these natural health products can legally say that they knew old Joe over there, that he had an operation on his knee, that it was swollen and that it did not go away for four months. However when he started to take that natural health product and before the week was over, his knee was well, the swelling gone, the lump gone and the limp gone. Those kinds of things are happening with some of the natural health products. However it is against the law to say on the label that this may or may not happen.
I am very concerned that we make a move to have more accurate labelling on these health products to inform people what the products might accomplish for the human body. Right now there is a total lack of labelling on them. The label only says what is in the bottle. No kind of directions or claims can be made other than a recommended dosage. Any move to clarify the labelling and make even better suggestions to that would be welcome.
We always seem to worry. We find the bad news in every situation and we worry about would happen if somebody misused some of these natural health products. The question I would ask is what happens if somebody misuses the doctor's prescription. I believe that is a problem that we need to look at.
We understand the misuse of prescription drugs in North America is rampant and people are dying and yet we act worried because somebody might take a little sampling of garlic or onion in a concentrated dose.
Medicine in this century and in this nation needs to be administered by more than simply drug pushers. I am concerned that when we go to a doctor, we are pointed to one drug but if that does not work we are pointed to another and another until one works, and we call that science. Yet we worry when we are told to eat lettuce or garlic. We worry about the natural products when it is the drug products that are killing us. The misuse of drugs is the problem, not the misuse of natural health products.
My colleague in the Bloc suggested that there might be a third category. That is true, we might use a third category but we might have to go at it a little more scientifically. However we may want to take this baby step first before we get to that point.
I understand in the United States there is a third category being developed. I do not know how far along it is or if the legislation has passed, but the third category is called a nutriceutical. This is where the nutrients are tested scientifically so the health product can then receive a label and be recommended for some very specific health benefits to the body. Perhaps that amendment may have to go to that.
We have the observations that even under the labelling of being a food, we still have protections under the Food and Drugs Act. I think my colleague mentioned those.
He said that it could not be a harmful or a poisonous substance and that it could not be unfit for human consumption. He also said that it could not be filthy, putrid, disgusting or rotten, which l think are things people regularly eat and use. I could put some things, which people pay good money for, into that category right quick, but that cannot be in a nutriceutical or adulterated. It has to be manufactured, prepared, preserved, packaged and stored under sanitary conditions. No person shall label, package, treat, process, sell or advertise any food in a manner that is false, misleading, and on and on they go. So there are protections there.
I believe it is time that we understand that health is more related to what happens and what goes into our body ahead of time than what goes into our body when we go to the doctor and he gives us a prescription of drugs.
I think we need to open this up. We need to allow our people to take responsibility for what they eat and what they choose, whether it be off the grocery store shelf or off the health food store shelf. I think we are headed in the right direction by making this baby step for this natural health product.