Natural Health Products Bill 2016 - Have Your Say
Author: Wayne Perkins
Our Right to Choose How We Stay Healthy
20th February 2016
About the author
Dr Guy Hatchard, was formerly Chief Natural Products Analyst at Genetic ID a global food and DNA testing company. He has been invited to speak at parliaments, to government committees, and to numerous CEO's of large corporations about food safety, testing, and policy in many countries around the world. He is an expert at time series analysis and panel regression analysis of complex data sets, economic trends, and social indicators. Guy is domiciled in New Zealand.
Dear Friends
It is an extraordinary step for our government to seek to control and drastically restrict our natural health choices. As a nation we are in the midst of a health crisis characterised by increased incidence of cancer, diabetes, asthma, allergies, heart disease, anxiety, stress, and many other chronic illnesses.
At the same time, health costs are rising so rapidly that they are consuming more and more of our national budget every year. Many needy patients are being denied treatment. We are not unique. Every nation in the world is facing a similar crisis, but the response is different in other countries. In USA, for example, over 50% of the population suffer from chronic illness and over 100,000 deaths per annum are attributed to the side effects of ‘correctly prescribed’ allopathic pharmaceutical medicines.
In response, there is a growing realisation that natural health practitioners are offering solutions to the health care crisis. 50% of all health care consultations are now with alternative or complementary practitioners. Medical doctors can receive professional credits if they take courses in complementary medicine. NIH (the National Institute of Health USA) is funding extensive research into the benefits of complementary approaches. In just one example, $20 million of NIH research funding has shown that one complementary approach can reduce high blood pressure, heart disease, and prolong life more than any conventional pharmaceutical approaches.
Now contrast this with the approach being adopted here in New Zealand. The Natural Health and Supplementary Products Bill comes up for its third reading very soon. The Bill in its present form will ensure our health choices are severely limited. A vast number of products and approaches will disappear overnight. Natural Health practitioners will be gagged from explaining the health benefits their services and products confer. Many traditional systems of preventative and balancing approaches to health, such as Ayurveda, used effectively and safely for thousands of years, will disappear. This Bill will ensure that New Zealand has the most restrictive approach to regulating Natural Products in the world. After reading the information below, we expect you will share our sense of outrage. How is it that cigarettes that cause thousands of deaths annually are continuing to be sold, while our MPs are wasting time and money on a vast scale to ban simple home remedies, traditional health practices, and even foods? Now is the time to contact your Member of Parliament directly to express your concerns. If you need more detailed information you will find it below.
Thank you for taking the time to read this and contact your MP before it is too late. We cannot assume that the simple freedom to make our own health choices will be there for us tomorrow unless we make our voice heard.