UNNATURAL PROCESS

RE: `New panel to label natural remedies,' Calgary Herald, May 20.

Why is our federal government spending $10 million of taxpayer money to
create a new regulatory body for natural health products when statistics
prove that they are safer than foods and drugs?

Who is really benefiting from these new regulations? Probe a little deeper
and you will see that major drug companies such as Bayer, Warner-Lambert,
Whithall-Robbins, Pharmaton and Smith-Kline Beeccham are aggressively moving
into the highly lucrative natural health products market. With profits that
are double what the banks make, these companies have been lobbying Health
Canada for this type of regulation for years.

Now Health Canada is poised to isolate natural health products into a third
category within our Food and Drug Act. That plays right into the hands of
these drug companies.

Why? Because by isolating natural health products and imposing `protective'
regulatory hurdles, only the big players can afford to stay in the game. Our
small producers and distributors of natural health products are being pushed
out of the very market they built.

Health Canada has a poor track record of protecting the health of
Canadians - tainted blood, silicone breast implants, lax regulations of
lethal drugs - and a cozy relationship with the pharmaceutical industry.

I urge anyone who cares about their health rights to write their MP to
reject this manipulative regulation of natural health products.

Virginia Queenan Calgary