ADVOCATE GENERAL FINDS FOOD SUPPLEMENTS DIRECTIVE INVALID UNDER EU LAW

[Guest guest]

Alliance for Natural Health

05 April 2005 11:47

 

Advocate General recommends in favour of the ANH landmark case!

 

 

 

 

A FANTASTIC DAY FOR HEALTH FREEDOM!

 

The European Court of Justice's Advocate General Geelhoed has provided

his opinion today. His opinion was read out in the European Court in

Luxembourg at 08.30 h this morning.

 

Please find our Press Release on the subject below.

 

We wish to thank all of you who have contributed, financially and in

other ways, to this landmark challenge that has the potential to rock

the entire agenda on ever-tightening restrictions worldwide on natural

health.

 

We will be giving you further updates in due course.

 

PRESS RELEASE

 

For immediate release

 

5 April 2005

 

ADVOCATE GENERAL FINDS FOOD SUPPLEMENTS DIRECTIVE INVALID UNDER EU LAW

 

ALLIANCE FOR NATURAL HEALTH SET TO WIN ITS LANDMARK CHALLENGE TO THE

EU FOOD SUPPLEMENTS DIRECTIVE

 

There was tremendous news today for the millions of people in Europe

who choose to use food supplements. Following a landmark challenge in

the European Courts of Justice (ECJ) brought by the Alliance for

Natural Health and Nutri-Link Ltd to the contentious Food Supplements

Directive, which effectively proposed to ban 75% of vitamin and

mineral forms, Advocate General Geelhoed, the senior adviser to the

ECJ, gave his Opinion in favour of the Alliance's case.

 

What does this mean? That the chances of consumers being able to

continue using the natural food supplements they believe are

beneficial to their health are now greatly increased. There has been

uproar about the proposed EU ban, and maybe, against the odds, the

consumer is going to come out on top in what is a remarkable modern

day case of David and Goliath.

 

In a statement released in Luxembourg today at 0830 GMT, the Advocate

General concluded that:

 

* The Food Supplements Directive infringes the principle of

proportionality because basic principles of Community law, such as the

requirements of legal protection, of legal certainty and of sound

administration have not properly been taken into account.

* It is therefore invalid under EU law.

 

It should be stressed that the Advocate General's pronouncement is not

a ruling. That will come from the ECJ judges, later - probably around

June. But typically, in the vast majority of cases, the Court Judgment

follows the recommendations of the Advocate General.

 

If the Advocate General's recommendations are adopted, in effect, the

ban on vitamin and mineral forms not included on the EU's `Positive

list,' due to come into effect on 1 August 2005, will be declared

illegal. In essence, the positive list of allowable nutrient forms

will be deemed to be too narrow, too restrictive, and based on flawed

science.

 

This would avoid the totally irrational situations that the Food

Supplements Directive would otherwise create. For example,

synthetically produced selenium would have been allowed on the

positive list, while the natural source found in Brazil nuts would

not; synthetic forms of Vitamin E (often used in `adverse' vitamin

studies reported in the media) would be allowed, but the natural, most

beneficial food forms would not.

 

An outstanding moment for the Alliance for Natural Health

 

The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) is a Europe-wide professional

organisation dedicated to ensuring that good science and good law are

applied to regulation affecting the leading edge of natural health.

If the Advocate General's recommendations are endorsed by the ECJ

judges, it will represent the culmination of three years dogged

determination, dedication and hard work on the part of ANH and its

many supporters around the world.

 

`It is commendable that the EU Advocate General has seen through the

flawed science and law of the Food Supplements Directive and reached

his recommendations today,' said Dr. Robert Verkerk, Executive of the ANH. `All that ANH is campaigning and working

cooperatively for is the right for consumers to have access to safe

natural healthcare and for legislation to be based on good science and

good law. This is a great day for the tens of millions of people who

believe passionately in the benefits of natural, preventative healthcare.'

 

David C. Hinde, Solicitor and ANH Legal Director, added: `This is a

very significant Opinion in a landmark case. What we want to see in

the EU is the Food Supplements Directive doing the job for which it

was created which is to provide a " safe harbour " for food supplements

so that they are not classified as drugs, and to promote their

availability across the EU. Advocate General Geelhoed is the most

senior Advocate General at the ECJ and his considered reasoning

vindicates ANH's legal analysis and position. We are very optimistic

that the Court will adopt his recommendations.'

 

Supporting safe supplements

 

ANH supports many aspects of the Directive, and firmly endorses the

banning of ingredients that are patently not safe, stating that

existing UK and EU food law already provides perfectly effective

protection from unsafe products getting onto the market. Furthermore,

ANH says that it is not scientifically rational to classify an

ingredient as being unsafe without taking dosage levels into account,

something that was not a condition of being admitted onto the positive

list.

 

ANH believes that a far more appropriate system for banning any

substances that might pose a risk to health would be to produce a

`Negative list' for ingredients where there was proper evidence of

lack of safety. The system proposed by the EU was going to ban

ingredients on the basis that companies did not have the financial

capacity to meet the high data threshold required for the scientific

dossiers demanded by EU authorities. In this way, ingredients that

have been part of the human diet for thousands of years, and which are

increasingly difficult to derive from conventional foods, would be

lost, and would not be able to be supplemented.

 

The future of the leading edge of natural health secured

 

Drawing its support European-wide from consumers, manufacturers,

retailers, practitioners and some of the leading experts in

nutritional medicine, ANH has taken on the Goliath of the European

Commission and those that support the unscientific and unlawful ban in

the Food Supplements Directive, to protect the interests of everyone

concerned with the leading-edge of food supplements and natural

healthcare.

 

`None of the major EU countries felt the need to oppose our

application for a declaration that the ban on vitamins and minerals in

the Food Supplements Directive was unlawful,' added Anthony Haynes,

Technical Director of Nutri-Link Ltd., a UK food supplements company

that brought the legal challenge jointly with ANH. `It's bizarre how

this regulation got this far.'

 

A wide welcome across the industry if the ban is overturned

 

Greg Watts, Chief Executive of Ultralife, a manufacturer of

leading-edge food supplements, said: `This is very encouraging news.

If the ban came into force we would have to reformulate down to

simpler, more basic products that consumers and practitioners find are

less effective.'

 

Dr Damien Downing, a medical doctor and one of the UK's leading

practitioners in nutritional medicine, said: `Practitioners of

nutritional therapy, and there are thousands of them in the UK,

largely use leading-edge food supplements. If these nutrient forms

remain, we can continue to treat our patients with meaningful

solutions and provide the products that we know are so beneficial. A

ban would in one fell swoop remove the vital tools of practitioners'

trade.'

 

Sara Novakovic, owner of Oliver's Wholefood Store in Richmond, Surrey,

said: `At last it is now highly likely we can continue to offer the

products that our customers ask for and want, rather than have to

remove them all from the shelves for no good reason and supply them

with inferior quality alternatives.'

 

The end of the beginning

 

This is just the beginning for the Alliance for Natural Health.

Regulatory and industry pressure through the EU Food Supplements

Directive was always likely to translate globally, particularly to the

US, through Codex and the World Health Organisation. Without having to

justify any health hazard, and without considering any benefits,

safety has been used as a reason to restrict the availability of

natural food products.

 

`Yet food supplements are the safest things that people put into their

mouths – considerably safer even than conventional foods', said Dr

Robert Verkerk. `With rapidly declining vitamin and mineral content in

fruit vegetables and other foods, and continuing increases in

degenerative diseases such as heart disease and cancer in the West,

this has always been a very big issue worth fighting for.'

 

`Fundamentally, an amended Directive would help to slow down the

agenda of the Codex Alimentarius Commission to export worldwide an

onerous, EU-style regime for food supplements.'

 

David Hinde added. `The ANH is now going to be working on getting a

proper procedure in place for the Food Supplements Directive and in

addition, the next challenges will be on legislation proposing to

reduce dosages to ineffective levels, and to restrict other nutrient

forms such as amino acids, enzymes and plant nutrients. Traditional

herbal remedies are also under threat. In its work, the Alliance for

Natural Health will continue its thorough, professional approach

based, as always, on `good science, good law.'

 

ENDS

 

For enquiries and further information contact:

 

Alliance for Natural Health

www.alliance-natural-health.org

 

Dr Robert Verkerk, Executive Director

Tel. +44 (0)1252 371 275

E-mail: robv

 

David C. Hinde, Solicitor, Legal Director

Tel: +44 (0)20 7738 1640

E-mail: davidh

 

IKON Associates

(PR advisers to the Alliance for Natural Health)

 

Adrian Shaw

Tel: +44 (0)1483 535102

Mobile: +44 (0)797 990 0733

E-mail: adrian

 

Paul Donkersley

Tel: +44 (0)1483 535101

Mobile: +44 (0)796 764 6046

E-mail: paul@ikonassociates

 

Notes for editors:

 

1. The Alliance for Natural Health is a Europe-wide association

of manufacturers, distributors, retailers, consumers and complementary

practitioners who have an interest in food supplements. More

information, including details of members, will be found at

www.alliance-natural-health.org

 

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 nutrition.

 

2. If the ban on vitamins and minerals is implemented there is

much at stake:

 

· Over 5000 products will disappear from the shelves of UK

health stores as a result of the ban removing access to over 300

vitamin and mineral ingredients (out of a total of about 420). These

include, amongst others, the main natural forms of Vitamin E, several

forms of vitamin C, the key natural form of folic acid, MSM and a

range of minerals such as vanadium, silicon and boron, all being

products which millions of consumers choose to take as part of their

regular health regime and have done so without any ill effects for

many years.

 

· An individual's freedom of choice to take safe natural

health products will be removed – 40% of the UK's population take

vitamins and minerals.

 

· Products are to be banned with absolutely no scientific

justification. Many of the world's leading scientific and medical

experts in nutrition support the absence of any proper basis for the

proposed bans.

 

· Although the proposed bans related only to vitamins and

minerals, unless overturned, the `Positive list' system will most

likely be transferred to other nutrients used in food supplements,

such as plant extracts, amino acids and enzymes. The precedent set by

an ANH victory will drastically reduce the chance of future bans on

these other nutrient forms.

 

· Further legislative proposals by the EU are due to be

considered by the European Parliament later this and next year. These

include restrictions on maximum dosages of vitamins and minerals and

restrictions on health claims of foods. Again, the ANH is working to

help positively shape such legislation using its mantra of `good

science and good law'.

 

In health,

 

Robert Verkerk PhD

Executive Director, ANH

 

David Hinde, Solicitor

Legal Director, ANH

 

and the rest of the Core Team of the ANH in the UK, Sweden, Ireland

and Denmark.

 

E-mail: info

Web: www.alliance-natural-health.org