KEY POINTS:
A new agency to regulate dietary supplements and alternative medicines will drastically cut consumer choice and increase the price of products by about 15 per cent, opponents say.
The Employers and Manufacturers Association northern branch yesterday accused the Government of using a "sledgehammer to crack a walnut-sized concern" about regulation of supplements and alternative medicines.
Health Minister Annette King will sign a treaty with Australia tomorrow at Parliament establishing a joint agency from July 1, 2005, to regulate drugs, over the counter medicines, dietary supplements and alternative medicines.
But the $200 million-a-year supplements and alternative medicines industry is horrified at the prospect of Australian-style regulation.
Association executive officer Garth Wyllie said that based on experience of its members with the Australian system, extra costs would include $800-$1000 a year to register a formulation with no new ingredients and at least $3000 for a product containing new ingredients. Keeping products registered will cost $360 each a year. Meanwhile, the health select committee was due to report to Parliament yesterday on a year-long inquiry into the industry's regulation by the new agency. The report did not turn up, committee chairwoman Steve Chadwick saying it was still "at the printers".
Last week Green MP Sue Kedgley attacked Ms King in Parliament for forging ahead to sign instead of waiting for the committee's report.
But Ms King said she got tired of waiting. She told the Herald at the weekend that the move was all about public safety. A big recall of products from Australian firm Pan Pharmaceuticals this year was the final straw and she had been hammered by the media for not having regulation.
Mr Wyllie said the issue was not that regulation was coming but that the Australian system was coming.
"Draconian is probably an understatement to describe it - it's seriously bad news to most companies over there," he said. "Nowhere else in the world is such an onerous set of regulations placed on this industry. Why are we doing it?"
The chairman of health products firm Comvita and chairman of the National Nutritional Foods Association, Bill Bracks, agreed with Mr Wyllie.
He had never been convinced joining the Australian system would benefit New Zealand consumers.
He said it was strange Ms King was quoting the Pan Pharmaceuticals case when the "extraordinarily difficult" Australian regulations had still allowed the Pan issue to develop.
"That alone cost the New Zealand industry through no fault of their own somewhere of the order of $25 million. "The question arises why we would want to give our sovereignty away to Australia to a system that was seen to fail."
But Nutra-Life Health and Fitness chief executive Mark Mathews said a joint agency made sense and would create a more even playing field.
The firm had successfully operated with the Australian system and some of the hurdles it set were appropriate.
"If we are selling a herbal product that has a therapeutic use, I think we should be able to ensure that that product has efficacy and I think the consumer should be able to rely on that."
Amy Adams, a spokeswoman for the dietary supplements industry's educational body, NZ Health Trust, agreed that prices would rise and consumer choice would be cut.
- NZ HERALD STAFF
