Abel (HealthPost Web Team)

Hi Everyone,

A customer of ours emailed Green Party MP Sue Kedgley about the proposed Natural Health Products Bill (click here to learn more) then shared her response with us.  We thought it was pretty interesting so we've decided, with our customer's kind permission, to publish it here, followed by our response.

Best,

Abel

Sue Kedgley's email, in response to our customer, is as follows:

From: "Sue Kedgley" <Sue.Kedgley@parliament.govt.nz>
Date: 19 May 2010 3:57:22 PM NZST

Subject: RE: Natural Health Products Bill

Many thanks for your email, and let me assure you that there is no Natural Health Products bill.
 
Instead a consultation document has been drafted by Ministry of Health officials and put out for consultation for the express purpose of getting feedback from industry and consumer groups.   

Many positive suggestions for change have been submitted in response to the consultation document and I am confident they will be taken on board.

Let me assure you that the Green party strongly supports natural, holistic healthcare and a health system that is focussed on wellness rather than illness management. We strongly support natural health products as a way of keeping people well. As a consequence, we would not support a regulatory regime that undermined the viability of the natural health industry or limited consumer choice.  

However we have been informed  from sources within the industry that a significant amount of imported product coming in from China and other countries does not have the ingredients it claims to have or is adulterated in some way and we need to protect consumers from this. (It is the same with food of course).
 
Many thanks again for your email,

Sue Kedgley MP
Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand
Room 15.06 Bowen House
Parliament Buildings, Wellington
Ph: 04-817-6717 Fax: 04-472-6003
Email: sue.kedgley@parliament.govt.nz

Our response to our customer is as follows:

While it's somewhat reassuring to see the comments from Sue Kedgley, I note the following points:  

RE: "there is no Natural Health Products bill"  

Perhaps not yet, but surely the consultation document is a step towards this as the ultimate intention?  It seemed clear to me from my reading of the document that this was the case (what would be the point otherwise?).  Apologies if the heading 'Natural Health Products Bill' on our website was misleading to you though, it would be better titled "Possible Natural Health Products Bill" or simply "Proposed Changes to NZ Natural Health Regulations" as we've used elsewhere.  

RE: "we would not support a regulatory regime that undermined the viability of the natural health industry or limited consumer choice"

Well, we'd certainly hope not but have you read the consultation document?  To our reading, it proposes an excessive, heavy-handed, regulatory environment for natural health products with (as just one example of this) the power to ban/approve any given substance vested in the hands of a "small unit within the Ministry of Health".  That doesn't seem kosher to us, especially not with so many vested interests - e.g. the conventional health lobby, pharmaceutical interests etc.  As proposed, it would inevitably increase the cost of producing natural health products in NZ and reduce consumer freedom of choice.  Another proposal, indicative of the mind-set behind the document, is that producers of natural health products would only be able to request approval to make claims of benefit for any product as selected from a list of pre-approved claims provided on a Ministry of Health website.  So despite the existence of any given natural product legitimately and scientifically proven to be able to provide a particular health benefit, actual label/advertising claims of benefit would be limited to a pre-determined list of possible claims deigned suitable by the appointed 'experts'.  

RE:  "we have been informed  from sources within the industry that a significant amount of imported product coming in from China and other countries does not have the ingredients it claims to have or is adulterated in some way and we need to protect consumers from this. (It is the same with food of course)."

We weren't aware of this being the case but if it is then we agree that action should be taken.  But if this is the key problem driving the need for new legislation, then why not create legislation which deals specifically with this issue?  The consultation document proposes changes which would be far, far more wide-reaching and goes way outside this, I'd have thought rather simple, brief.  Also, if goods aren't 'true to label' then shouldn't they (as "with food of course") be covered by existing legislation given the treatment of natural health products as food under current legislation?  The legislation as proposed sets out to address, in our opinion, a problem which doesn't exist.  We believe that New Zealander's, with very few exceptions, are not making themselves sick with natural health products, they're keeping themselves well with natural health products.  We'd be very interested to see some statistical evidence to the contrary.