Dear Health Freedom Advocate,

The latest news on the ANZTPA (ANZ Therapeutic Products Authority) is that the NZ Parliament committee will not recommend that NZ be party to the scheme. This sounds like a great win for the Kiwi's however I would not be surprised if the Health Minister, Annette King, still tries to push the Bill through without any regard to the committee findings.

Those of you who are not up with this issue, the Australian TGA is trying to take over regulation of the New Zealand natural health industry. This will increase regulation and increase costs to the consumer. Many health supplements would quite possibly disappear from the shelf because they are not legal in Australia there fore will not be legal in NZ in the future. All in all it would devastate the NZ health industry, however it would be beneficial to the larger health supplement companies here in Australia, the same companies which are already owned by the pharmaceutical drug cartels, companies like Natures Own, Golden Glow, Natures Way, Heron to name a few.

The end point of the ANZTPA is to bring NZ and Australia closer towards international harmonisation and Codex in the many years ahead.

NZ dumps ANZTPA, talks of split
Posted 18 June 2007

http://www.pharmainfocus.com.au/news.asp?newsid=1780

The New Zealand parliamentary select committee directed to report on the ANZ Therapeutic Products Authority (TPA) bill has split and will not recommend the scheme be passed by the NZ Parliament.

After nearly six months of deliberation on the Therapeutic Products and Medicines Bill, the Government Administration Committee has said, "We have been unable to reach agreement and therefore cannot recommend that the bill be passed."

Without passage of the bill in NZ, the joint scheme cannot go ahead.

Leader of the United Future Party Peter Dunne and NZ Foreign Minister Winston Peters immediately came out against the legislation in its current form.

The committee split along party lines with Labour members favouring the bill with minor changes while National Party members called for complementary medicines to be quarantined in a "lighter" NZ-based regulatory scheme. The non-voting Green Party member also supported stand-alone NZ regulation of complementaries.

The committee said it had received 895 written submissions on the bill. "Over three quarters of these submissions were from individuals and the remainder from various organisations and groups. Most individual submitters were consumers of dietary supplements and natural health products and generally opposed the joint regulation of therapeutic products. Recurring concerns were that the costs and other consequences of complying with the new regulations could reduce choice for the consumer, that the products remaining on the market might become more expensive, the new Authority might undermine New Zealand's sovereignty, and that small and innovative New Zealand-based businesses might be adversely affected," the report said.

Industry submissions generally supported the intent of the bill although changes to specific provisions were called for.

"A number of supporters also argued that the bill would be beneficial to public health by making medicines available sooner, by facilitating access to medicines used to treat rare diseases, and by bringing New Zealand's regulation of therapeutic products into line with international best practice by establishing a joint Authority," the committee report said.

Peters, who leads the NZ First party, proposed NZ companies should be able to opt out of the scheme and be regulated locally while Dunne - who is an Associate Minister for Health - said "we will not support the legislation any further, unless natural health products, and complementary medicines are excluded from the legislation, and made subject to local regulation, with the right to opt in to the joint arrangement if manufacturers so wished, and with no change to existing rules on direct to consumer advertising".

Michael Bending 
Alliance for Health Freedom Australia 
http://www.ahf-au.org 
'All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing' 
- Edmund Burke (1729-1797), British writer and politician -