Shawn Buckley

In last month’s Common Ground I wrote an article explaining how, in my opinion, the new Natural Health Product (NHP) Regulations were illegal. I had also voiced my concern that these new Regulations were driving NHPs from the market and that if consumers did not wake up they would find that the NHPs they rely on for their health have disappeared.
Recently, in preparation for a court matter, I conducted legal research into the instances when the state can force people to take psychiatric drugs against their will. I was horrified to learn that, in certain situations, the state can force someone to take psychiatric drugs which, aside from putting them in a mental fog, carry a list of side effects that most of us would not be willing to risk. Particularly troubling for me was a finding by the Ontario Court of Appeal in the case of Fleming v. Reid, which stated that the “… most potentially serious side effect of anti-psychotic drugs is a condition known as tardive dyskinesia. This is a generally irreversible neurological disorder characterized by involuntary, rhythmic and grotesque movement of the face, mouth, tongue and jaw.”
After doing this research, it occurred to me that the state’s ability to force us to take psychiatric drugs and the attack by Health Canada on the NHP industry are related. Both flow from a belief that the mainstream pharmaceutical medical model should be imposed on us because it is good for us – the same rationale used by the courts when they order that the state can force us to take psychiatric drugs. When NHPs are driven from the market because they do not or cannot comply with pharmaceutical drug-style regulations, it is obvious that the natural health model does not have the same privileges as the pharmaceutical drug model.
Let me give you two examples: In 2002, Health Canada ordered the stop-sale of all products containing kava, a plant native to the South Pacific. Kava has been widely recognized as a natural treatment for things like anxiety and the root is traditionally used to make tea. I say traditionally used, as kava is widely consumed in the South Pacific and Canadian tourists in Hawaii can drink it legally at kava tea shops.
Health Canada’s pretext for taking kava off the market is that it caused liver toxicity. I have not researched the reports, but I spoke to Ralph Pike, the head of a health action group in England, who has. According to Mr. Pike, an elderly man who was on several pharmaceutical drugs for various health problems died during the night. The next day the public health nurse noticed a pot of kava tea on the counter and an adverse reaction report was filed. The result: no kava allowed in Canada. No pharmaceutical drugs were banned, however.
Let’s leave aside that kava is being safely consumed in South Pacific countries and the US. The real problem with Health Canada’s knee-jerk reaction is that it ignores the risk caused by removing a natural treatment for anxiety from the market. Canadians who were safely using kava for conditions such as anxiety were forced to use pharmaceutical drugs instead and they now have to deal with the drugs’ side effects.
Similarly, in 2003, Health Canada targeted another NHP, EMPowerplus, a vitamin and mineral treatment for bi-polar disorder. Health Canada took many steps to remove this product from the market. It issued public warnings. It raided the manufacturer TrueHope Nutritional Support. It seized and turned shipments away at the border. It charged TrueHope for selling a drug without a Drug Identification Number.
Arguably the world expert in treating bi-polar disorder with pharmaceutical drugs, Dr. Charles Popper was subpoenaed to testify at the trial. Popper teaches doctors to become psychiatrists at Harvard University and he has pioneered pharmaceutical drug treatments for mental illness conditions in children. He is the only psychiatrist that Harvard permits to have a clinical practice in its hospitals. He gets bi-polar patients that other psychiatrists cannot handle.
While Dr. Popper was initially reluctant to allow any of his patients to try EMPowerplus, he testified that once he did authorize EMPowerplus for his patients, his practice changed dramatically.
When his patients were taking pharmaceutical drugs, he counselled them weekly to ensure against their committing suicide. However, after many of his patients began taking EMPowerplus, they resumed work or school and he only had to meet with them every several months. Dr. Popper testified that he underestimated the “fog” that anti-psychotic drugs put his patients in. He came to this conclusion after every single patient on EMPowerplus explained how much clearer their thinking was.
Dr. Popper also testified that if Empower plus was withdrawn from the market, there would be deaths, hospitalizations and assaults. He also testified that he would not be able to handle his practice and would have to refer many of his patients to other psychiatrists as he would have to resort to regular counselling and management, a necessity with psychiatric drugs.
Before attempting to take EMPowerplus off of the market, Health Canada did not consult with Dr. Popper or any other doctors or psychiatrists familiar with the NHP. In the end, the head of the Alberta branch of the Canadian Mental Health Association went public to blame Health Canada for suicides when two CMHA members ran out of EMPowerplus and committed suicide. Eventually, the minister of health relented and agreed that EMPowerplus could be imported into Canada. TrueHope was found not-guilty at trial because the Court found that it was morally obligated to continue selling EMPowerplus.
In the course of trying to remove EMPowerplus from the market, Health Canada received so many calls from angry Canadians that it ultimately set up a 1-800 crisis line, which advised callers to see their doctors and get back on approved psychiatric drugs. The attack on EMPowerplus, as the attack on kava, is a classic case of Health Canada privileging the pharmaceutical medical model over the natural health model.
It is not enough for Canadians to wake up and start pressuring their MPs to ensure that NHPs remain on the market. We need to realize that the natural health paradigm must co-exist with the medical drug model. There is a real health risk in assuming that the mainstream pharmaceutical medical model is good for us.

Shawn Buckley is a constitutional lawyer who specializes in the Food and Drug Act and regulations. He acts primarily on behalf of manufacturers of natural health products.