Manufacturers of natural health products will have to comply with new labeling regulations. But rules set by Health Canada give industry six years to adopt the new labels for their increasingly popular domestic products.
Posted at 7:00 a.m.
The new regulation amending the Natural Health Products Regulations entered into force on July 6 after being published in the Canada Gazette. This introduces new requirements for product labeling to make it clearer.
According to Health Canada, the use of natural health products is on the rise and is expected to increase, due to several factors, including “the aging population, the COVID-19 pandemic, greater internet access and other sources of information as well as increasing the role of consumers in their self-care”. The new standards are also intended to be consistent with existing rules for non-prescription drugs in the country. Ottawa had been consulting on this since 2016.
Paul Cerat, communications advisor at the Ordre des pharmacists du Québec, explains that the new regulations provide for a standardized information table, the mention of the presence of allergens, gluten, sulphites and aspartame as well as ” best contact details” to reach the manufacturer or distributor, in addition to a postal address. New readability requirements are added regarding font size and style.
“It’s a step in the right direction, but it’s not enough and it’s not fast enough”, judges the president of the Order of Pharmacists, Bertrand Bolduc, who specifies that “it’s a bit the far west” when it comes to natural health products. “It’s a good first step, but in our opinion it doesn’t quite go far enough. »
Long delay to comply
The new regulation is welcomed by the Association pour la santé publique du Québec (ASPQ), which however criticizes the time given to the industry to comply with these standards. For products that are already approved by Health Canada, manufacturers will have six years to adopt the new labeling standard, while the deadline will be three years for new products that are not already approved.
“These are very long delays, points out Laurence Sauvé-Lévesque, public policy advisor at the ASPQ. We had criticized this delay in our brief presented as part of the public consultation on the amendment to the regulation. »
Remember that in 2021, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada produced a very critical report on Health Canada’s practices regarding natural health products. Among the main findings, the federal agency criticized Health Canada for not always verifying whether manufacturers “follow good manufacturing practices before natural health products are marketed in Canada”.
“The consumption of these products has been exponential for several years,” points out Laurence Sauvé-Lévesque. This new regulation is only a first step before other important changes in the coming years in terms of natural health products, she recalls.
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- 91,000
- Since 2004, Health Canada has approved over 91,000 natural health products
Source: Office of the Auditor General of Canada