Proposed Dose Limits on Vitamin Supplements in Europe Found to be Scientifically Flawed

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Proposed Dose Limits on Vitamin Supplements in Europe Found to be

Scientifically Flawed

 

New study reveals extensive scientific weaknesses in methods

being proposed to limit supplement dosages across Europe

Alliance for Natural Health, Jan 15, 2010

 

Straight to the Source

 

 

 

http://www.organicconsumers.org/articles/article_20043.cfm

 

 

 

"When the people fear the government there is

tyranny, when the government fears the people there is liberty" -Thomas

Jefferson

 

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Download the Executive Summary and Editor's Notes

 

A critical study published in the scientific journal Toxicology casts

serious doubts over the methods being considered by the European Food

Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Commission to limit dosages of

vitamin and mineral food supplements across the European Union (EU).

 

Lead author of the Toxicology article, Robert Verkerk PhD, scientific

and executive director of Alliance for Natural Health (ANH)

International, considers the proposed methods for determining 'maximum

permitted levels' as "fatally flawed". Dr Verkerk and colleagues have

made extensive representations concerning nutrient risk analysis to

European and international authorities in the past, however, the

Toxicology paper represents the most thorough scientific critique

undertaken to-date.

 

Dr Verkerk claims that outputs from the models most favoured by

European authorities have never been subject to proper scientific

validation. The paper reveals that proposed maximum amounts for some

vitamins and minerals are so low they may even be exceeded in a single

junk meal. "The risk analysis methods being used for nutrients", stated

Dr Verkerk, "have been only slightly adapted from those used to limit

our exposure to environmental chemicals like mercury, pesticides or

dioxins. Nutrients cannot be treated in the same way because without

them, unlike with environmental toxins, we suffer serious adverse

health effects or die."

 

A recent impact assessment undertaken by two UK health trade

associations, the Health Food Manufacturers Association and the

National Association of Health Stores, found that the proposed

restrictions in the UK alone could potentially lead to the loss of well

over £100 million worth of sales, the closure of more than 700

independent retail stores and around 4,000 job losses. Concerns over

the impact of the restrictions were put forward on 2 December 2009 in

the UK Parliament through an Early Day Motion (EDM 336).

 

ANH International claims that the findings revealed in the Toxicology

article are of such profound significance that the European

Commission's plans to limit dosages of vitamin and mineral food

supplements EU-wide should be delayed until such time that new,

scientifically validated methods are developed.

 

The article has also exposed the fact that important principles for

nutrient risk analysis put forward by a World Health Organization

expert group in 2006 have so far been ignored. The authors of the

critique suggest that entirely new methods, derived from the field of

decision science, may be the most valid approach for nutrients.

 

 

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