Updates on the CCRG and C-51

We received the following email from a reader, updating us on some goings-on with respect to Bill O'Neill and the Canadian Cancer Research Group as well as Bill C-51. [Links added]

Hi, Bayblab . . .
I took an interest in Bayblab as soon as I learned that Bill O'Neill (CCRG, ISM) threatened to sue you. That put you in very distinguished company.

Here are some fairly recent developments on the CCRG, ISM scene, most of which you likely already know about:

-- Immune System Management, ISM, has been granted 'corporate membership' in OCRI.

-- Bill seems to be switching the emphasis from his CCRG to his ISM: The directory board inside the Fifth Avenue Court building still lists the CCRG as a tenant, but the sign swinging above the entrance to Bill's offices that once read "CCRG" has been replaced with one reading "Immune System Management."

-- He still hasn't replaced Dr. Eoghan O'Shea but his websites still say he has at least one "medical doctor" on staff.

-- The CCRG website began proclaiming that it had launched a lawsuit again CTV and W-Five more than 2 years ago but it has never come to court.

-- With the words "swindling people living with cancer is one of most despicable forms of fraud" the Competition Bureau launched "Project False Hope" last March to coincide with Fraud Awareness Month. It comprises 2 clever features meant to steer the unwary away from phony "cancer clinic." The Bureau grumbles that it has the power to do more. Don't hold your breath.

-- The Ottawa Citizen reported the other day that Tony Clement has folded under the intense pressure brought against his Bill C-51 by the Natural Food Products manufacturers. The original bill had enough power to force the CCRGs and ISMs to submit medical claims to scientific rigor. What with Parliament set to adjourn for the summer, it now appears certain Bill C-51 will go to the Standing Committee on Health for review and revision.

Regards . . .

Quickly checking some of those sites, Project False Hope seems like a nice idea, but as our reader points out, is largely toothless. What it does have is a dummy natural product site and quiz to help identify health fraud, but little else (and no mention of particular companies or groups that should be avoided). I wasn't able to find specific details about the proposed changes to C-51, but it sounds like the revised bill will create a separate category for natural health products (the current version has them grouped with prescription drugs as 'therapeutic products') which takes acknowledges "that natural health products are generally of lower risk and that their long history of use has some value." [Globe and Mail] I'll be interested to see if the proposed changes alter any of C-51's language dealing with standards of evidence and marketing for natural products which I thought was one of the major benefits of the original bill.

Bill C-51: A Rant

There's a whole lot of fear-mongering going on about Canadian Bill C-51, an amendment to the Food and Drugs Act. Facebook groups are popping up against the bill, protests are being organized and a website has been set up to organize the troops.

What C-51 is, quoting from the bill, is an attempt

to modernize the regulatory system for foods and therapeutic products, to strengthen the oversight of the benefits and risks of therapeutic products throughout their life cycle, to support effective compliance and enforcement actions and to enable a greater transparency and openness of the regulatory system.

In other words, it's an attempt to regulate therapeutic health products to ensure their safety and efficacy. Obviously, this has raised the ire of the natural products industry who has responded with 'news' pieces like this with alarming 'facts' such as "C-51 is outlawing herbs, supplements and vitamins", or "a mother giving an herb to her child, under the proposed new language, could be arrested for engaging in the sale of unregulated, unapproved 'therapeutic substances.'" (more on that one in a moment). This alarmism is stirred in with a nice painting of draconian enforcement and a dollop of Big Pharma conspiracy theory to make it an amusing, if typical, propaganda piece.

I'm obligated to point out that I am not a lawyer, but I've read the bill. It is NOT outlawing products, but rather bringing the natural health product industry up to a certain standard of testing. It's an attack on deceptive labeling, improper health claims and pseudoscience. No thug is going to kick down your door for serving dandelion greens at dinner. What is being outlawed is selling dandelion greens in a misleading way (eg. with untested health claims).

This brings us to the definition of 'sell', which is a major point for the alarmists. The amended act, if passed, will define sell as

offer for sale, expose for sale or have in possession for sale — or distribute to one or more persons, whether or not the distribution is made for consideration — and, in relation to a device, includes lease, offer for lease, expose for lease or have in possession for lease.

The phrase that the bill-opposers have latched onto is 'distribute to one or more persons'. They take that to mean that, to use the above example, serving dandelion greens for supper counts as 'selling'. While this interpretation of the new wording is technically true, one has to look at the contexts in which the word "sell" is used in the bill. Reading through it, it becomes clear that it's very specific things that run contrary to the proposed law. For example, 'selling' dandelion greens is only prohibited if they have a poisonous or harmful substance in or on it; if they are unfit for human consumption; are adulterated; are injurious to human health; or are processed, manufactured, stored, etc. in unsanitary conditions. That does NOT sound like draconian restrictions on what you can put on your table or give your family. It sounds like common sense. The bill goes further than that, prohibiting 'selling' "a food in a manner that is false, misleading or deceptive or is likely to create an erroneous impression regarding its character, value, quantity, composition, merit, safety or origin." For a therapeutic product, this is expanded to include "creat[ing] an erroneous impression regarding its benefits, risks, conditions of use." In other words, no false claims. So, to the people who oppose this language change, is it because you want to be free to distribute harmful goods, or because you're interested in making false or untested claims about your product?

Shawn Buckley, natural product lawyer, has weighed in with a 20 page review of C-51. (You may remember his name being thrown around by the pro-algae folks on the StemEnhance thread) He goes on to list a number of concerns. First on his list is that roughly 60% of of natural health product licenses are failing, meaning that with this amendment over 60% of the products on the market will become illegal and can be removed from the market by Health Canada. What is implied in this statement, is that 60% of the natural health products already on the market are not licensed. Nor does he state why these licenses are being denied. Is he seriously pushing for unlicensed health products - products that have failed to get government approval - to remain on shelves?

Buckley tries to portray the government as being bullies towards the natural health product industry. He points to language changes proposed by the act, such as replacing 'drug' with 'therapeutic product' and then asks "is the change of terminology directed at the Natural Health Product industry or are there other reasons?" My guess is that the answer is 'yes' and I would respond with the question 'So?' The changes in the act seem to have in mind the goal of bringing the natural product industry to a particular standard. The pharmaceutical industry is already regulated in terms of safety requirements, evidence-based results, etc. Obviously bringing drugs and natural products under the same 'therapeutic product' umbrella is designed to ensure that ALL of these products are safe, effective and work as advertised. As Buckley himself points out, the pharmaceutical industry already has a high compliance rate with Health Canada rulings, while 60% of natural products go to market having their licenses denied.

What is more concerning is the National Health Products Protection Association (NHPPA, of which Buckley is president) position. In the legal review of C-51, their goals are listed as a regulatory environment where, among other things, "NHPs [natural health products] are presumed to be safe. A NHP cannot be taken off of the market unless the Government can prove that it is unsafe." This is just a ridiculous attitude. If the default position for a natural product is 'safe', that means people have to start getting ill or dying before somebody steps in. The reality is that health products should be deemed safe before they go to market. Just because it's labeled natural doesn't make it safe. As I've pointed out before, several potent cancer drugs are natural products. Would the NHPPA have these, or any future similar discoveries given a blanket 'safe' label and start selling to people?

Therein is the lunacy of the natural product position: The want their products to be at once efficacious and totally harmless. For any product to be useful in some therapeutic way, it has to have a biological effect. If it has a biological effect, then you have to start thinking about how it works, safe doses, potential side-effects, etc. Now don't get me wrong, I don't think the bottle of vitamin C in the medicine cabinet is particularly dangerous (of course, anything is at a high enough dose), but natural health products include more than standard vitamin supplements with known tolerances. They include products that claim to mobilize stem cells, alter gut flora composition, and stimulate the immune system as well as non-standard megadoses of of common vitamins. All of these effects have the potential to cause adverse events. The default position is not 'totally harmless'.

Mr. Buckley does raise some interesting points about the use of the word 'government' in the bill, and how it may affect adoption of future regulations. In C-51, the definition of government includes international bodies and foreign governments and states that "A regulation may incorporate by reference documents produced by a person or body other than the Minister of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency including ... (c) a government." This sounds like the amended bill makes it easier to incorporate foreign policies into Canadian law. However, given Buckely's position with the NHPPA, I doubt the sovereignty of Canadian law is his primary concern.

Of course there will be people arguing that the government has no right to tell us what to put in our bodies. That's not what these changes are doing. It doesn't say you can't eat your dandelion greens, take your garlic supplement or multivitamin. It says that the products must be safe and that their sales and marketing can't be false, misleading or deceptive. You can eat your greens, but they can't be sold as age-reversing. You can take your garlic pills, but they can't be sold as cancer-curing. Unless, of course, there's evidence.