While natural health products should be regulated, they don't carry the same risk as pharmaceutical drugs so there is no justification for introducing pharmaceutical-style regulations. Clinical psychologist Professor Julia Rucklidge is director of the Mental Health and Nutrition Research Group at the University of Canterbury. Any day now, the Natural Health and Supplementary Products Bill - meant to protect the public from harm - will be before Parliament for its final reading. Will companies pay to register natural health products as medicines? Alongside this rise, the number of people on disability benefits as a direct consequence of an underlying mental illness has quadrupled over the last two decades.

Source: New Zealand Herald June 21, 2016 17:03 UTC