Stop Canadian Supplement Restrictions Coming to the US

Recently, we reported that Sen. Durbin is planning on introducing his anti-supplement bill sometime in 2024. This bill would institute “mandatory product listing” (MPL) for supplements. Creating a registry of the supplement industry may sound harmless, but for the reasons we’ve outlined in the past, this policy is a real threat to your supplement access. To help show why, we need only look to our neighbors in the north: Canada. The evolution of the Canadian system shows how additional supplement regulations sought by Sen. Durbin and the FDA lead us down a path where consumers have ever fewer choices because so many products—especially the most efficacious—will be eliminated.

In the US, supplements are regulated as food; in Canada, they are regulated under the Natural Health Products Regulations as a distinct ‘third’ category, between foods and drugs, requiring pre-market approval. To sell a supplement in Canada, companies must first apply for and obtain a Natural Product Number (NPN) from Health Canada (the equivalent of the FDA). To get an NPN, a company must provide extensive information regarding the safety and efficacy of the natural health product.

Since Canada’s law came into effect in 2004, leading natural health advocates like Shawn Buckley at the Natural Health Product Protection Association have argued that innovation has taken a nose-dive and many small- and medium-sized supplement manufacturers and importers have been driven out of business. It’s not hard to see why—only large manufacturers selling cookie-cutter products are able to comply with the extensive costs of gaining pre-approval, muscling out smaller, more innovative companies offering the most effective natural products.