Our Goals
Above all, to see high-quality, safe and affordable natural health products remain accessible to all New Zealanders.
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Repeal the Therapeutic Products Act or ensure the removal of Natural Health Products from the Act’s purview
- That a new stand-alone office of natural products be established. That it be completely separate from any pharmaceutical regulatory authority and involve the creation of a new ministerial position as its head
- Persons appointed to run the new authority should be free of conflicts of interest and be generally acceptable to the natural health industry
- The availability of naturally occurring ingredients (or their ‘Generally Recognised As Safe’ (GRAS) synthetic equivalents) should only be restricted when there is robust evidence of harm. The same criteria should also apply for setting maximum dosage levels. Such restrictions should apply only to the form of the ingredient where harm was proven
- That the new regulatory authority be government funded at a level similar to other industries
- That the new regulatory authority be internationally accepted and promoted for the benefit of exporters
- That a multi-tiered structure for allowing natural health claims be established. Advertisers would be required to maintain research files for claims made at any level
- That clear guidelines should exist to differentiate the validity of claims such as ‘clinically proven’, ‘supports’, or ‘may support’
- That affordable, pragmatic testing requirements are established for importers of products from countries without a robust regulator, or for very small New Zealand manufacturers
- That all products, ingredients and dosages currently available in New Zealand would be acceptable for sale in New Zealand. That efforts be made to educate allopathic medical practitioners on the benefits of certain nutritional supplements for non critical medical conditions
- That a penalties structure for lack of compliance be set at levels considered normal for other industries in New Zealand
