Health Supplements Advertisements Requirements

Name and Constituency of Member of Parliament

Dr Chia Shi-Lu
MP for Tanjong Pagar GRC

Question No. 2311

To ask 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.

Oral Reply

1     The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) takes a risk-based approach in regulating the different categories of health products, including health supplements.

2     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.

3     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 up to $5000 or imprisonment of up to 2 years or both.

4     In addition, HSA also educates the public to be cautious of exaggerating advertising claims through consumer advisories.

5     Mandatory testing by dealers to back up advertisement claims is not being considered at this time.