Stop the TGA classifying our food as drugs

Sign the Stop the TGA categorising our Foods as Medicine Petition!

Send your petition to stop the TGA categorising our food as medicines

This petition is in response to a TGA consultation paper calling for comment regarding amendments added to
Section 7 of the Therapeutic Goods Act 1989 (the Act)

For the TGA paper click here:
http://www.tga.gov.au/cm/consult/cons-s7declaration.pdf

For the back ground about the TGA Section 7 click here:
http://www.tga.gov.au/docs/html/cmec/section7.htm

Signatures received since launch day (November 24th, 2009):

Dear MP Roxon, MP Butler and The TGA Project Officer, Hippocrates said "let food be thy medicine". This did not mean that our food should be regulated as dangerous drugs that need to be treated as potentially life threatening! Hundreds of years later the observation of Hippocrates still stands, yet the Australian Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) want to go one step further and class our food as a hazardous medicine similar to dangerous synthetic pharmaceutical drugs? The TGA wants to do this by changing legislation that makes our food in capsule or tablet form a drug! http://www.tga.gov.au/docs/html/cmec/section7.htm http://www.tga.gov.au/cm/consult/cons-s7declaration.pdf Does this mean that Kellogg's Special-K in a capsule could soon be a drug or shredded wheat cereals? The TGA states: "In Australia, it has long been recognised that there is a legislative ‘interface’, or overlap, between foods and medicines for human oral consumption. As the food and complementary medicine sectors have evolved over recent years, a ‘grey area’ has unintentionally developed at this food-medicine interface. The confusion is due to certain areas of food legislation and therapeutic goods legislation overlapping in such a way that makes it difficult to determine which legislation should be applied in many cases." The real reason for this over lap is that the TGA regulates health supplements as medicines. Health supplements should be regulated in a third category of their own, just as they are now or soon to be in New Zealand. If this happened then foods would not be regulated as drugs or medicines. This "confusion" is the fault of the TGA's regulation and not the fault of the health supplement industry! We use natural health products as foods and not medicine. Yes good food keeps us healthy but it is not a drug! We do not find the existing laws misleading or confusing as the TGA has insisted . In fact, changing the law as the TGA is suggesting makes the new laws even more confusing. We as consumers understand the difference between foods and medicines and we do not need the TGA to define this for us. We are intelligent human beings, we read the labels, we educate ourselves. It may be confusing to the TGA but it is not confusing to the public! This law benefits the bigger health companies of which are mostly owned or majority controlled by drug companies. This proposal by the TGA will raise the costs of entry point into the health food market for small business, leaving a monopoly for larger companies. Turning such food products into medicines is misleading on the TGA's behalf and serves also the financial interests of the TGA, as it generates more income with regards to annual audits and listing on the TGA Therapeutic Register of a health product. These costs will then be passed on to consumers. For example, such products as Chlorella, Wheat grass, Barley grass and Spirulina, under the TGA's proposed plans, will become a drug and a medicine. These products will then become more expensive to purchase. This is outrageous! People prefer these foods in a capsule form during travel, or because the taste may not be desirable to the palate, or just simply as it is easier to monitor how much of the food they have ingested, this does not make them a therapeutic good (drug). Does this mean that the TGA will also categorise products, available from food retail, such as sodium saccharin tablets as a drug? This is the same sodium saccharin which has been linked to cancer (but still available to the public). Or will the TGA make exemptions for dangerous products like sodium saccharin to be freely available as a food? Over the years the TGA and its officers seem to have forgotten about their original charter, and now we are seeing what is commonly called "regulatory creep". The whole primary raison d'être for the TGA is to keep us safe from dangerous drugs, which the TGA is not doing such a good job of. Remember Vioxx? The TGA did nothing! Merck Sharp & Dohme eventually pulled the Vioxx off the market voluntarily after it had already killed 50,000 people (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/10/27/1098667790205.html) The TGA should keep its hands off our foods! Food is a food and drugs are potentially dangerous products produced by drug companies! There is a large difference and we do not find the definition confusing, nor should the TGA! The amendments to Section 7 of the Therapeutics Goods Act should not be implemented in any form. We call on the Federal Minister for Health and the TGA to withdraw this proposal.

Leaderboard of top petition supporters:

See all Friend Point scores: (click here to check your score)

123 friend points - David B of Gold Coast, Australia
http://www.virtualmedicinehealth.com

34 friend points - Monique G of Brisbane, Australia
http://www.beardeddragon.com.au

17 friend points - Jeremy D of Robina, Australia
http://onewaychiropractic.com.au

7 friend points - christina m of perth, West Australia

6 friend points - David B of Gold Coast, Australia