Bill of health: Alternative remedies

Jessica Werb | Image: Joyce Hesselberth | Published: August 01, 2008

The first time I met Dr. Yan Bin Ma was just over two years ago. For many months previous, I had been dealing with a baffling condition (the details of which I’ll keep to myself  ) that necessitated scans, invasive probing and various unpleasant encounters with myriad health-care practitioners, none of whom came up with an explanation. The answer, when it finally arrived, was simple – my hormones were out of whack – and the solution, a well-meaning specialist told me, was equally simple: estrogen. When I broke into sobs in his office, he was baffled. But at 30 years of age, with a still-unrealized desire to procreate, something about gulping down synthetic hormones seemed very, very wrong. Couldn’t I find a way to get my body to produce its own hormones, rather than putting what seemed like a Band-Aid on the symptoms?

Then an acquaintance suggested I visit her traditional Chinese doctor. What the hell, I figured. And so I entered the small, cluttered West Broadway offices of Dr. Ma, a stocky, no-nonsense middle-aged Chinese woman with a blunt manner. Dr. Ma, whom I visit every two weeks, peers at my tongue, measures my pulse and pokes needles into my skin – not gently, I might add. She also gives me a collection of herbal tablets to be taken 10 at a time with warm water twice a day. Each appointment costs me $50, plus $15 for a week’s supply of herbs; it’s not cheap, but cheaper than the $30-a-day estrogen originally prescribed by my doctor. And most importantly, it works.

But my continued access to Dr. Ma’s herbal treatments may not be assured – that is, if critics of the increasing regulation of the natural health industry are to be believed. According to groups such as the Canadian Health Food Association (CHFA) and the Natural Health Products Protection Association, natural remedies are being threatened by an overly stringent licensing board and an overzealous federal health minister. Physician and consumer protection groups, however, are supportive of increased regulatory oversight of the industry, which they say has been left with too little supervision for too long.

On April 8, when

federal health minister Tony Clement introduced Bill C-51 – a series of proposed amendments to the Food and Drugs Act – the alternative health industry exploded in revolt. The bill, which at press time was in second reading, redefined the Food and Drugs Act as “an act respecting foods, therapeutic products and cosmetics,” and lumped natural health products (NHPs) – a category that includes vitamins and minerals, herbal remedies and teas, and plants and plant products – in with drugs under the therapeutics category. In addition, it proposed greater enforcement powers to inspectors, allowing them to seize items without a suspected breach of the act or regulations, and without an appeal or review by the courts. The bill also increased penalties (up to $5 million) for those in contravention of the act. While Clement later proposed changes to assuage some of the fears in the natural health industry, many in the alternative health-care sector say the legislation, along with other recent regulations, threatens to stifle an industry that is just coming into its own.

The appetite for alternative health treatments has grown significantly in recent years, as an increasing number of consumers like me venture outside the conventional Western medical system. According to Statistics Canada, 20 per cent of Canadians aged 12 or older – and almost 23 per cent of British Columbians – used some type of alternative or complementary health care in 2003 (the most recent year for which figures are available), including visits to acupuncturists, homeopaths, naturopaths and chiropractors; that compares to an estimated 7.6 per cent nationally in 1999. For those with chronic health conditions, the numbers are even higher: one-quarter of those with at least one chronic condition said they’d consulted an alternative health practitioner. And according to a 2005 survey by Health Canada, 71 per cent of Canadians have used a natural health product, the three most popular being vitamins, echinacea and herbal remedies. In B.C., 79 per cent of residents have used NHPs – tops in the country. Indeed, peer into the medicine cabinets of your friends and you’re more than likely to find some sort of NHP, whether it’s a bottle of what’s being touted as the new cancer-prevention miracle, vitamin D, a vial of the oft-contested flu remedy echinacea, or a package of the Don Cherry-endorsed cold fighter Cold-fX.