STOP SELLING NATURAL REMEDIES IN CAN-CANADA PHARMACY REGULATERS SAY

I MYSELF THINK THIS IS THE PHARMACY BIGWIGS TRYING TO BAN VITAMINS AND MINERALS AND NATURAL FOOD PRODUCTS THEN THEY MAKE THEM INSTEAD AND TAKE AND RAKE IN BIG BUCKS INSTEAD.LIKE THE SWINE FLU SCAM THAT RAKED IN BILLIONS TO PHAMACY COMPANIES.

http://organichealthadviser.com/archives/organic-health-news-thousands-of-natural-health-products-remedies-and-supplements-have-been-suddenly-banned-in-canada/comment-page-1

Stop selling unlicensed natural health remedies: pharmacy regulators
Tom Blackwell, National Post Published: Sunday, February 07, 2010
National Post
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2534645

The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) says pharmacists cannot be assured the products are safe until they are granted a government licence
Makers of natural-health products say they are bracing for widespread layoffs and millions of dollars in losses after Canada's pharmacy regulators issued a surprise directive recently urging druggists to stop selling unlicensed natural remedies.

The order affects thousands of herbal treatments, multi-vitamins and other products, most of them waiting for approval from Health Canada under a backlogged, five-year-old program to regulate natural-health goods.The National Association of Pharmacy Regulatory Authorities (NAPRA) says pharmacists cannot be assured the products are safe until they are granted a government licence, and should not sell them in those circumstances.Pharmacists are obliged to hold the health and safety of the public or patient as their first and foremost consideration, said the association's recently issued position statement.Representatives of the natural health industry, however, have reacted angrily to the directive issued last month, predicting it will have little impact on patient safety, while triggering an economic crisis for their members.We are talking about job loss, we are talking about a lot of income loss, we are talking about product stuck in warehouses that cannot be sold,Jean-Yves Dionne, a spokesman for the Canadian Health Food Association, said in an interview.A statement issued by the association calls the directive self-serving and contrary to federal government policy. It has taken a sledge hammer to a finishing nail, the group said. It will create confusion for consumers. It is the wrong thing to do.

NAPRA is comprised of representatives of the provincial colleges of pharmacy that regulate the profession. It is now up to the individual provinces to implement the statement. The Ontario and Quebec colleges have already done so, with Ontario pressing pharmacists to not buy or order any more of the affected products, and its neighbour pushing for druggists to also remove unlicensed product already on their shelves, Mr. Dionne said.Pharmacies, as surprised by the directive as anyone, are caught in the middle, said Jeff Poston of the Canadian Pharmacists Association.One of the questions that everybody is asking in the pharmacy world is, Why now? As far as people can determine, nothing has significantly changed.

A spokesman for NAPRA was not available for comment.

The controversy revolves around Health Canada's natural-health products regime, launched in 2004 to vet treatments that had been virtually unregulated before, in a new system some critics said was still too lax. As it ploughed through tens of thousands of applications for licences, the department said manufacturers could continue selling their products, so long as they had at least applied for approval.

The department has issued about 18,000 natural-health licences, while at least 10,000 products are still waiting for certification, industry representatives said. The whole process was supposed to be done by this January.The natural-food association argues that it makes no sense for the pharmacy regulators to try to block sales of products awaiting licences, when Health Canada itself has said they can be sold pending an approval decision.The industry is worth an estimated $1.5-billion to $2-billion a year, but many producers are small operations with sales of $1-million to $2-million annually and could be decimated by the directive, Mr. Dionne said. He cited a call he got last week from a manufacturer in Nova Scotia who sells two products -- a homeopathic remedy for diabetes-related pain and a vitamin-based pill -- that are waiting for approval and could be forced off the shelves.

They are really panicking out there,he said.

Some manufacturers could sell their products in health-food stores instead, but others rely exclusively on pharmacies, said Mr. Dionne.Gerry Harrington of Consumer Health Products Canada, another industry group that represents natural-health producers, said his members strongly support the regulations. NAPRA may be targeting others, though, who are trying to evade any government oversight, he said.There is a sub-set of companies out there who have no intention of complying with the regulations, who have taken advantage of the interim approach to essentially ignore the regulations,Mr. Harrington said.Some companies have chosen ... to lobby politically for an essentially unregulated or minimally regulated industry.
Meanwhile, Mr. Poston said pharmacists are pressing for the regulators to lessen the disruption by phasing in the policy.National Post
tblackwell@nationalpost.com
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http://www.nationalpost.com/news/story.html?id=2507090
Treat vitamins as over-the-counter drugs: doctors-Side effects potentially dangerous: paper Tom Blackwell, From Canwest News Service Monday, February 01, 2010

With Health Canada poised to let food makers fortify a wide range of new products with vitamins and other nutrients, a group of leading emergency-department doctors is calling for vitamins to be treated like over-the-counter drugs because of their potentially dangerous side effects.The physicians from children's hospitals in British Columbia, Alberta and Ontario also recommend that vitamin A no longer be allowed as an ingredient in multivitamins, citing evidence that it can cause birth defects in high doses.The researchers stress that vitamins are generally safe and healthy when consumed appropriately. But with many Canadians convinced that taking large quantities of certain supplements can stave off various medical problems, the doctors caution that the public needs to know more about the downsides of high doses or improper chronic use.Those effects range from liver damage caused by too much vitamin A to hardening of the arteries linked to vitamin C, the physicians outline in a paper just published in The Annals of Pharmacotherapy. Some can also interact riskily with other drugs, undermining blood-clotting ability, for instance, when combined with the popular painkiller Ibuprofen.We don't want to wait for something bad to happen, said Dr. Ran Goldman, head of emergency at the B.C. Children's Hospital and the study's lead author.The doctors take aim as well at a proposal being considered by Health Canada to give food manufacturers freedom to fortify a wide range of products, including snack foods and pop, with vitamins and other nutrients. A department official reiterated in a recent letter that the government is moving toward the change.

The idea is unacceptable,given the already high consumption of vitamins in society, the emergency physicians say.Health Canada, though, says that it has serious concerns about their study and how it portrays regulation of vitamins. In fact, the nutrients are covered by the government's new natural-health products rules, and they require substances to undergo assessment before being approved and to carry detailed side-effect information, the department said in an email response to questions.The doctors suggest the five-year-old natural-health regulations are not appropriately stringent for products such as vitamins. Heather Boon, a pharmacy professor at the University of Toronto who studies natural-health products, said that is not true, though she noted that spotty application of the regulations so far means safety labelling of vitamins now varies from product to product.

The problem is that people think vitamins and they automatically think They must be good for you, and more must be better,and that's when people get into trouble,she said.We need to be conscious that if you take too much, you could run into trouble.Carl Carter, regulatory affairs chief at the Canadian Health Food Association, said consumers should be better informed about vitamins -- because of their benefits.Canadians are underexposed to vitamin D, particularly in the winter months,he said.From a safety point of view, there could be as much as a 70% reduction in the risk of cancer through the appropriate use of vitamin D.

Side effects potentially dangerous: paper

The study cites evidence that as many as a third of Americans use vitamins, suggesting that the figures are similar in Canada.A survey by the same group in Toronto found that 32% of children who showed up at an emergency department had taken vitamins in the previous three months, though parents often fail to mention such use.The doctors outline five vitamins they feel should be treated like drugs-- A, E, D, folic acid and niacin -- based on safety research produced over the past 40 years.Large doses of niacin, for instance, can cause digestive symptoms ranging from nausea to peptic ulcers, the paper notes.Many scientists are now recommending people in northern climates boost their consumption of vitamin D-- naturally produced when sunshine strikes the skin -- as evidence mounts that it helps prevent various cancers and other illness.Excessive amounts of it, though, can cause problems including kidney damage and anemia, the study says.National Post, with files
tblackwell@nationalpost.com