Welcome to the the first installment of Health Canada Approves… a new weekly series designed to introduce you to the wide array of natural health products given the gold seal by Health Canada’s Natural Health Products Directorate.
If you’re a regular reader of Skeptic North, you’ll know that we’ve been critical of the NHPD in the past for declaring products “effective” without sufficient evidence of such claims. Have we been too harsh? That’s for you to decide.
Each week, we’ll be presenting two products — one real and approved by Health Canada, the other invented in the darker reaches our brains — and ask you to figure out which is which. The following week, we’ll tally the votes, give you the answer, and present a new set of products for your consideration.
So here we go. And remember, the real product “has been assessed by Health Canada and has been found to be safe, effective and of high quality under its recommended conditions of use.”
- Devil's Claw Secondary Tuber: Traditionally used to help treat inflammation of the joints. (62%, 91 Votes)
- Reastatica: Homeopathic preparation used in the treatment of disorders of the nervous and phlegmatic systems. (38%, 56 Votes)
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Don’t go for synthetic drugs (sources are mostly chemical). Prefer natural substances such as herbs and minerals. Go for products which are not tested on animals
@Dr. Nancy Malik
So you are telling me to go for the unrefine stuff that gets all those other compounds that could make me sick rather than the synthetic drug that have refined the good protein that do the desired effect. Hummmm…
What kind of doctor are you exactly? Not sure you are a medical doctor.
Dr. Malik,
You mean natural substances such as lead, uranium, arsenic, nightshade, ricin, hemlock etc. Natural does not imply safer.
Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t digitalis come from Night shade?
And Digitalis is a heart medication?
@Dwight – Yes, it’s sold as digoxin and used for a number of cardiovascular conditions.
Not sure if they covered this in your homeopathy training, but I think you should know that herbs and minerals also have chemicals. They are loaded with them, in fact.
Synthetic drugs typically drive their chemicals from the refined versions of the active ingredients from the herbs and minerals.
Also, why mention the animal testing part at all? That’s a different question relating to biomedical ethics, not product efficacy.
I don’t mean to be trite “Dr.” Malik (Dr. of homeopathy. I’ve checked. Your stethoscope avatar a pretty thin veil) but they’re all chemicals!
yeesh.
Hey Doc…I am mostly chemical too, and lots of people go for me…or at least I wish….100% all-Natural me!
I wonder if Health Canada has any warnings on the most ubiquitous solvent chemical on the planet: Dihydrogen Oxide. That stuff is in practically everything!
Lovely idea for a fact or fiction feature. I’ve got no medical background at all to inform my vote (and resisted the urge to sleuth it out on google). I’m keen for the revel next week.
Fun idea – I’ll follow it awhile to see if it has any hope of stimulating logical thinking. I had previously thought that Health Canada allows any dingbat ‘alternative med’ as long as it is proven ‘harmless’, which is bad enough. But actually declaring something ‘effective’ without scientific proof makes me sick.
Nancy Malik is a spam bot. She was banned from JREF forums for spamming basically the same off topic message several times.