ANH PRESS RELEASE

[Guest guest]

ANH PRESS RELEASE

For immediate release / international dissemination

 

19 January 2005

 

NEW GERMAN REPORT CLAIMS THAT FOOD SUPPLEMENTS ARE UNSAFE

 

A newly established German institution, the Federal Institute for

Risk Assessment (BfR), released yesterday a 341-page report [1] on

risk assessment of nutrients used in food supplements. The report

makes recommendations for maximum levels that are well below those

that are commonly present in vitamin and mineral supplements sold in

health stores in the UK, Ireland, Sweden, other EU countries, the

USA and elsewhere. Many people might, understandably, assume, as a

result of this report, that commonly availablefood supplements are

unsafe.

 

The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), a pan-European body of

interests in the natural healthcare field, strongly contests the

science used by the German institute. Good science and good law

underpin all of the ANH's work, and the scientific reports produced

by the ANH are endorsed by many of the world's leading doctors and

scientists working in the field of nutritional medicine.

 

The report, for example, recommends a maximum level of vitamin C of

225 mg in food supplements, when many health stores sell 1000 mg

tablets, and significant numbers of people consume 2000 mg or more

per day. Maximum recommended dosages for vitamin B6 have been set at

5.4 mg, against 25 mg or more commonly found in UK and

USsupplements, while vitamin B12 has been set at an astonishing 9

mcg, compared with over 300 mcg in many supplements.

 

Many European countries have for years considered multiples of

Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for nutrients as a means of

assessing safety, but this approach has been found to be

scientifically unjustifiable as RDAs are minimum levels that guard

against the development of deficiency diseases that are uncommon in

modern, western societies, such as scurvy, beri-beri, pellagra and

rickets. Scientific risk assessment is the recently acclaimed

approach that will replace RDAs for evaluation of safety, having

been endorsed both by the European Union in its Food Supplements

Directive, set to come into force in August this year, and the

United Nation's Codex Alimentarius, which develops global guidelines

for food safety.

 

Dr Robert Verkerk, executive director of the ANH says:

 

" The maximum levels for vitamins and minerals proposed by BfR are in

many cases far lower than those required for optimum health. They

have used what is purportedly a scientific method, to produce data

that is meaningless for the majority of the population.

 

" The problem is that the poor science used in this report will be

viewed seriously by EFSA - the European Food Safety Authority - that

is developing maximum levels for use in food supplements across in

Europe, and Codex Alimentarius, which is setting global guidelines

on vitamins and minerals. In the worse case scenario, the science

could be adopted by EFSA lock stock and barrel and that would be

catastrophic for the leading edge of the natural products industry

in Europe, as well as US innovative suppliers, practitioners and

consumers of these products. "

 

In December 2004, the ANH submitted a ground-breaking critique [2]

of risk assessment methods to the FAO/WHO of the United Nations in

response to a consultation on the subject. The ANH report

demonstrated the flawed nature of existing scientific risk

assessment methods used by the EU's Scientific Committee on Food, in

turn used as the baseline for upper levels by BfR. BfR have gone on,

as proposed in the EU's Food Supplements Directive, to reduce

further the already unnecessarily low `upper safe levels' by taking

into account dietary intakes and susceptible population groups, and

ended up with meaningless, unreasonably low maximum recommended

levels for food supplements.

 

The ANH's landmark case against the EU's proposed ban on 75% of

vitamin and mineral forms currently on the UK market is due to be

heard in the European Court of Justice in Luxembourg on 25 January.

 

[1] Download BfR report from:

http://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/238/verwendung_von_vitaminen_in_lebensmitte

ln_bfr_wissenschaft_3_2004.pdf.

 

[2] Download ANH consultation response to FAO/WHO from:

http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_121.pdf.

 

ENDS

 

For further information:

 

Alliance for Natural Health

www.alliance-natural-health.org

 

Dr Robert Verkerk - Executive Director

 

Tel: 01252 371 275

Email: robv

 

IKON Associates

 

Adrian Shaw - Partner

 

Tel: 01483 535102

Mobile: 0797 9900733

Email: adrian