Debated in Parliament on 2 Oct 2018.
Dr Chia Shi-Lu asked the Minister for Health whether the Ministry will consider requiring manufacturers of health supplements to provide test results from accredited laboratories to back up their advertising claims in order to prevent inaccurate representation.
Mr Speaker, the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) takes a risk-based approach in regulating the different categories of health products, and that includes the health supplements that Dr Chia Shi-Lu speaks about.
Health supplements are used to support general well-being, and not for the purposes of preventing or treating diseases. Dealers are allowed to use authoritative reference texts, such as official publications issued by authorities and published literature, to support and substantiate their product claims. This approach to advertising claims for health supplements is similar to those adopted in the United States, Australia, Canada and Japan.
However, advertisements on health supplements which claim to prevent or treat diseases are not allowed. When detected, these advertisers will be ordered to stop the publication of these advertisements. Non-compliant advertisers may face a maximum penalty of a fine of up to $5,000 or imprisonment up to two years or both.
In addition, HSA also educates the public to be cautious of exaggerated advertising claims through consumer advisories.
Mandatory testing by dealers to back up advertisement claims, therefore, is not being considered at this time.
Mr Speaker: Dr Chia Shi-Lu.
I want to thank the Senior Minister of State for his response. I have three supplementary questions. First, since HSA already has guidelines, would the Ministry of Health consider making sure that we do some legislation to back it up? With regard to the issue about the test results, I understand that what HSA does now is that they actually test these supplements for toxic substances. I am not sure what the testing or monitoring regime is. Perhaps the Senior Minister of State could enlighten the House on what some of these monitoring regimes are.
But as I understand it, they do not also test whether these supplements actually contain what they profess to contain. So, for example, if a product says "I contain X grammes of this active ingredient", do we actually know that this product actually contains X grammes of this ingredient? Because there have been many cases over the years all over the world when independent testers actually test these products, they do not actually contain the health ingredients that they say that they do.
Finally, the last question is: if consumers do actually get side effects or adverse effects from consuming these supplements, what are their recourse for mediation or where can they turn to? Is it just caveat emptor or do they have some avenues they can turn to for redress?
I will deal with all three of the supplementary questions together. Health supplements, by definition, they contain minerals, usually vitamins, amino acids, and largely comprise substances that are natural from animal or plant extracts. And so, to that extent, when Dr Chia Shi-Lu speaks about the guidelines, there are guidelines and they are published, and Dr Chia may know that they are published for the industry's reference, and they do provide recommendations along the lines of the safety and quality standards: what ingredients are allowable and the claims that can be made about those ingredients, and also the heavy metal and microbial limits and weight of these items.
HSA also provides guidelines on what precise information can appear on the labels to those items. In addition, Dr Chia Shi-Lu speaks of the post-marketing surveillance. That is being done by HSA. So, there is a post-market surveillance that monitors the safety of these products as they hit the shelves. They also allow HSA to initiate timely product recalls should there be any adverse reaction.
As I mentioned earlier, HSA takes a risk-based approach to identifying what this sampling of the health products would take, what scope it would cover, and also takes an active step in looking at this in sampling, to test them for toxic heavy metals and other prohibited ingredients.
The post-market surveillance testing for health supplements is also complemented by an adverse reaction monitoring, which Dr Chia Shi-Lu also mentioned in his third supplementary question. And all that taken together allows HSA to surveil the market. Whether or not these guidelines should eventuate into legislation, I would not rule that out but, at this point in time, there are no plans to do so.
As for whether or not the consumers of these items have a recourse subsequently, obviously it is, to some extent, caveat emptor when you buy but, certainly, HSA would welcome complaints that are being made. And as I mentioned, adverse reaction monitoring is being carried out. So, the sense of the market, the information and intelligence gathered from the market would help HSA in making those assessments.
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