Rense: EU Rules Will Drastically Reduce Access to Vitamins after New Years

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EU Rules Threatening To Sweep Away Vitamin Pills

By Gaby Hinsliff

Political Editor

The Observer - UK

12-25-4

 

www.rense.com

 

 

Vitamin supplements used by thousands of Britons, from pregnant women

to people warding off winter colds, are to be swept from shop shelves

from the new year under controversial European Union safety

regulations.

 

Carole Caplin, former style adviser to Cherie Blair, will front a

last-ditch campaign next month to get the directive on food

supplements overturned.

 

It would affect up to 5,000 products, including best-sellers such as

Solgar's Pre-Natal Nutrients tablets, taken by pregnant and

breastfeeding women; and VM-2000 multi-nutrient pills, a compound of

antioxidants. Megadose vitamins, such as the high-strength vitamin C

tablets taken by many to stave off coughs and sniffles, are also

under threat, with new safety standards to be issued separately early

next year.

 

Campaigners will take their fight to the European courts in January.

However, they say some manufacturers have begun withdrawing from the

legal challenge or started reformulating supplements to ensure they

comply by August, when the directive will become law.

 

'We have got to do everything we can to put pressure on the British

government, otherwise British consumers who have used these products

for 40 or 50 years will lose out,' said Sue Croft of the pressure

group, Consumers for Health Choice.

 

'People are using supplements as an insurance policy to keep

themselves well. I'm not saying vitamins are a cure-all, but as a

measure to keep somebody in good health, they work.

 

'If it's safe, you should be allowed to use it; therefore I cannot

understand why the British government is not fighting our corner.'

 

She said campaigners were also worried about the threat to megadose

vitamins. 'We have a vitamin culture here, and we do take these high-

strength nutrients where good science supports them. That could be 3g

of vitamin C for example, where on the continent the highest dose you

can get in some countries is 200mg.'

 

One in three women takes some form of health food supplement,

particularly during pregnancy or menopause, as does one in four men.

 

Caplin, who regularly recommends alternative remedies to clients, is

understood to have lobbied the Prime Minister personally.

 

She has also publicly accused the Health Minister, Melanie Johnson,

of showing a 'distinct lack of care and interest' in the issue. Peter

Hain, the Leader of the Commons, who has a longstanding interest in

alternative therapies, is also understood to have raised objections

to the directive, which he has described as 'heavy-handed'. Some 180

MPs have signed a Commons motion expressing 'grave concern' that

pills and powders in common use are to become illegal.

 

The Food Supplements Directive in effect outlaws health food

preparations containing ingredients not on its 'positive list' of

permitted substances. Manufacturers prepared to draw up a detailed

scientific dossier arguing that their ingredients are proven to be

safe are allowed an extension until 2008.

 

Campaigners say the 'agreed' list was simply borrowed from one drawn

up for baby foods, and there is no evidence any of the ingredients

are unsafe for adults. They argue Britain is suffering from a culture-

clash with continental countries, which traditionally treat vitamins

as akin to medicines. In Greece they are usually obtained through

pharmacists, while a 'megadose' of vitamin C in Italy can be only one-

tenth as strong as one in Britain.

 

A Department of Health spokeswoman said: 'We want to protect public

health while keeping wide consumer choice.'

 

Many doctors are sceptical about megadose vitamins, arguing that a

healthy diet meets most people's needs.

 

 

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004

 

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1379780,00.html