The Public Health Agency of Canada recently issued a notice regarding a surge in cases of measles in many parts of the country. At the time of the notice, 30 cases had already been reported, five times as many as in the previous year. Why is a disease that was so well controlled for many years slowly making this insidious comeback? The answer may lie with Health Canada and its consistent decisions to allow and even add “nosodes” — homeopathic vaccines — to its list of products approved for sale.

Nosodes offer no protection against disease. They are not effective in preventing, treating or curing any of the maladies for which they are marketed. There is no sound, peer-reviewed evidence that they help stop the spread or progression of disease. This is so well known that the British Homeopathic Association has said the following: “There is no evidence to suggest homeopathic vaccinations can protect against contagious diseases. We recommend people seek out the conventional treatments.”

With that grim fact out of the way, what is Health Canada doing approving ineffective vaccines for sale.

On its website when talking about natural products, it declares: “To be licensed in Canada, natural health products must be safe, effective, of high quality and carry detailed label information to let people make safe and informed choices.”

Safety and quality aside, it is clear nosodes are not effective. Health Canada by the declaration on its page is tacitly saying that these products are in fact effective, a fact not borne out by any body of scientific evidence.

It should be noted that it have not approved these as acceptable alternatives to traditional vaccination. This seems to shout administrative cognitive dissonance; the agency knows nosodes are no substitute for effective vaccines yet by licensing them its says that these are effective remedies.

While Health Canada must respect the ability and right of each citizen to make their own health-care decisions, should it do so at the expense of others in the community? By approving for sale compounds that will be used as alternatives to traditional vaccination, it is reducing the rate of immunity in every community and needlessly risking lives especially of those who are too young or too weak to develop immunity.

Health Canada has positioned itself as the gatekeeper of health care for all Canadians. Regardless of the political pressures applied on it by members of the government or interest groups, the agency ought not sacrifice sound scientific judgment. It should strive to be a respected source of sound, unbiased scientific judgment. Doing so requires that it reject nosodes outright until they are proven safe and effective through independent inquiry. By not doing so, Health Canada risks its own scientific integrity, the trust of the public and, most importantly, the lives of the weakest and most vulnerable citizens who are relying on it. At a time when vaccine preventable diseases are on the rise, this is not the time to let pseudo-science drive health policy.

Nathan Kunzler is a medical student at the New York University school of medicine. Dr. Arthur Caplan is head of the division of medical ethics at New York University.

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