Where You Come In
We believe NOW is the time to tell our elected federal officials that changes are required to ensure a wide variety of high quality, safe and effective innovative NHPs must remain available to Canadians. We need you, your family and loved ones, friends and colleagues to contact your Members of Parliament. Let them know you want continued access to high quality, safe and effective NHPs in Canada!
Statistics
The federal government's Natural Health Products Directorate (
NHPD Canada) is responsible for receiving NHP license applications from the natural health products industry.
2004 - 2009
Over
41.000 product license applications submitted
Just over
16,000 applications approved by NHPD
About
10,000 applications still waiting for assessment*
*License, applications and approval numbers updated Oct-09*
In some cases, applications have waited several years for review.
In five (5) years, just under 40% of the NHP license applications submitted for approval have actually been licensed, which is alarming! And the apparent deadline for enforcement is almost here - April 2010!
The system is broken. Health Canada must postpone any enforcement activity until the system is fixed.
It is readily apparent that without some much-needed changes to the current regulatory process, Canada's natural health products industry will no longer be able to provide the variety and innovative products Canadian consumers expect and deserve.
Some experts predict that by the end of Health Canada's new enforcement strategy, over 50% of our country's natural health products industry will be eliminated.
That means thousands of Canadians will lose their jobs and the government will lose millions in tax revenues.
But most of all, it means thousands of Canadians will lose their ability to make their own informed decisions about natural health products!
Drastic measures must be implemented to ensure timely access to high quality, safe and effective NHPs in Canadian markets.