Truehope "Raids" Health Canada...
Opinion by Consumer Advocate Tim Bolen
Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009
Yesterday, a Canadian company Truehope, the makers of EMPowerplus, the first supplement product in North America to be protected against attack by a government agency by the Court System, started their second round of assault against Health Canada.
Let's wish them well...
In their first round they slapped Health Canada around a Canadian Courtroom, getting the Court to Order Health Canada to leave them alone. The Court ruled, simply, that EMPowerplus, a supplement product that reverses Bi-Polar issues, did not require approval from Health Canada, and that it was "a necessity" to the people that used it. Health Canada employees had stopped entry of the product into Canada (it is manufactured in the US) causing several people to die, and many others to suffer, without it. No Health Canada employees, however, were ever criminally indicted for those deaths.
Yup - they are attacking Health Canada one more time - and if they win this assault they will have completely removed Health Canada's teeth, so to speak. Health Canada might as well, after this, lock the doors and send the employees home.
Why? Because if Truehope has their way Health Canada won't be able to attack Vitamin Supplement companies any more. It has been a simple fact that Health Canada, from the top down, sees its role as protecting the pharmaceutical industry it is supposed to be regulating against competition.
Health Canada claims in its Mission Statement to so certain things, in reality it does exactly the opposite. Read this below, from their website:
"Health Canada is the Federal department responsible for helping Canadians maintain and improve their health, while respecting individual choices and circumstances. According to our mission and vision, Health Canada's goal is for Canada to be among the countries with the healthiest people in the world."
The old adage "Actions speak louder than words" comes into play here when you take a hard look at Health Canada. When you do that there are only two choices here to consider: (1) either that is NOT Health Canada's true Mission Statement, and the agency website is a fraud, or (2) certain employees (a lot of them, from the top down) are intentionally ignoring what the people of Canada set them in place, and ordered them to do, on their behalf.
I go for choice number two. In this Health Canada duplicates the everyday duplicity in US agencies, like the US FDA and the CDC.
Removing Health Canada's Teeth...
In a letter I received from Truehope:
"Truehope co-founder Anthony Stephan claims that if the constitutional challenge is successful Health Canada will no longer be able to remove a product from the market without first proving in court that the removal will not harm Canadians who use it for their health. “Canadians are harmed when viable natural treatments or preventions are taken away. Drugs should not be the only option for Canadians who choose health. The judgment will extend protection to all Canadians and to all natural health products.”
Current Health Canada regulations allow bureaucrats to remove natural products at will without any accountability to Canadians for their actions.2 “We think this kind of unconstitutional freefor-all opens the door for corruption and for big pharma lobby, and closes the door on individual freedom and choice in personal health care,” says Stephan."
In short, it is a Constitutional Challenge to two subparagraphs of the Food and Drug Act - section 23(1)(d) and section 26. The action claims that those two sections violate Sections 7 and 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. These two subparagraphs are the "teeth" of Health Canada. Just below is the explanation, from the Court Documents, of the two sections:
The Constitutional Challenge, however, maintains that allowing this unrestrained activity by Health Canada violates sections 7 and 8 of the Canadian Charter of Rights - for several reasons - and wants these sections struck down. Below is why they want section 23 (1)(d) struck down:
Then they attack section 26 in much the same way...
Then they attack both sections...
But then it gets even better...
We'll keep you posted.
Stay tuned...
