Bid to Lift EU Ban on Vitamins Fails

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Bid to Lift EU Ban on Vitamins Fails

by Sean Poulter

 

 

(FOR THE LATEST ON THE NEW LEGISLATION)

A challenge to the European ban on hundreds of natural health

supplements failed yesterday. In a surprise decision the European

Court of Justice upheld a controversial directive imposing tight

controls on sales of minerals, nutrients and some vitamins.

 

The judges went against the advice of the Court's own Advocate General

who had concluded the Food Supplements Directive was legally invalid

and said it should be annulled. The directive, which comes into force

next month, threatens the sale of 300 nutrients, which are used in

various combinations in around 5,000 health products.

 

It will impose a maximum dose level per tablet on a range of vitamins,

including vitamin C, although no decision has been made on what this

will be….

 

Actress Jenny Seagrove [who has campaigned against the directive]

said: " This is a complete betrayal. This is just lunacy. People depend

on these things. If they are taken away, you are talking about

individuals suffering a real deterioration in their health, well-being

and quality of life. The ridiculous thing is that this directive has

nothing to do with safety, that is a complete smoke-screen. This is

about a bureaucratic attempt to harmonise regulations across the EU. "

 

 

 

And Guess Who's Going to Benefit?

by Geoffrey Lean

 

Nothing epitomizes more clearly the increasingly arrogant nature of

the European Union than its authoritarian ban on mineral and vitamin

pills. In less than three weeks - by dictate of a European Commission

directive - thousands of popular, harmless, natural medicines are due

to be swept from the shelves.

 

The directive - upheld by the European Court of Justice yesterday - is

possibly the most outrageous legislation yet to come out of Brussels.

Touted as a way of protecting people's health, it seems designed only

to benefit big drug firms.

 

With the ban will come a topsy- turvy world where adult Britons will

be unable to buy their long tried and tested supplements from health

food stores, while tobacconists will go on selling cigarettes to

teenagers.

 

The ruling follows a vast campaign against the ban. More than 300

doctors wrote to the Prime Minister to oppose it, while a million

Britons signed a petition against it. Some 20 million Britons take

supplements every day. Most swear that they keep them healthier. And

there is good evidence that they do.

 

Levels of minerals and vitamins in modern diets are dropping as

intensive agriculture increasingly leeches them from the soil and

people eat more processed food. Research shows that not eating enough

of them raises the danger of cancer and heart disease. A recent study

by the American Medical Association shows that some of the pills do

offer protection against these.

 

But the drug companies prefer to draw attention to the supplements'

alleged hazards.

 

Though some evidence suggest some alternative medicines may have

harmful effect if taken in ridiculously high doses, research suggests

certain side-effects of the drug companies' products are the fourth

biggest cause of death in the US.

 

Yet, by attacking the alternatives, the ban seems designed to benefit

the drug companies. And the way in which it is enforced only heightens

the suspicion.

 

The directive inhibits the sale of vitamins and minerals unless they

are on an 'approved list'. Those banned, says the Alliance for Natural

Health, are mainly the more sophisticated ones used by alternative

medical practitioners. Those allowed are, by and large, crude versions

used by the big pharmaceutical companies in their own vitamin and

mineral products.

 

Compounds like caustic soda, used to clean drains, and sodium

fluoride, a pest killer, are on the permitted list while sulphur,

important for the skin, and boron, valuable for healthy teeth and

bones, are to be banned.

 

Very late in the day, Government seems to have woken up to the

absurdity of all this. Cabinet Minister Peter Hain has called the ban

'unnecessary interference', and even Tony Blair objected to it in

talks with other EU leaders last month. But, in truth, the Government

has done much to bring it about.

 

It voted for the ban and it systematically removed Labour MPs

sceptical about the directive from the Parliamentary committee

scrutinizing it. Worse still, it joined Greece and Portugal in

fighting the bid to overturn the directive.

 

Tony Blair therefore has a lot to do to redeem himself, but he may

have an opportunity. The Alliance for Natural Health believes

yesterday's judgment has left an escape route that still could be used

to negate the worst effects of the directive.

 

The court appears to have exempted any vitamins and minerals that are

normally found in the diet - a provision which could allow naturally

occurring ones to escape the ban. The Commission denies this, but the

Government should urgently examine and exploit whatever latitude it

provides.

 

Otherwise we can expect increasing hostility to Europe in Britain. For

people unmoved by arguments about sovereignty and the euro will surely

never forgive Brussels for needlessly removing harmless supplements

they have long taken to safeguard their health, just to swell the

profits of pharmaceutical giants.

Daily Mail, 13th July 2005

 

 

Brussels Gives a Healthy Boost to Pharma Giants

by Christopher Booker

 

There was extensive media coverage last week of the European Court of

Justice's ruling in favour of the Brussels directive on vitamin and

mineral supplements. The choice of the 21 million people in Britain

who use them will be drastically restricted when thousands of products

are forced off the shelves, because it will cost between £80,000 and

£250,000 for testing to allow each preparation to continue to be sold.

 

I have often written about this since 1994, when the directive first

came into view, because it provides such a revealing case-study in how

we are now governed. There is no scientific reason for the new law.

Its greatest beneficiaries will be the pharmaceutical companies who

have lobbied for it in Brussels, because it will drive thousands of

their smaller competitors out of business. They have freely used bogus

science to whip up a scare that misuse of food supplements can cause

adverse reactions (albeit in only a tiny minority of users), while

hiding away the fact that tens of thousands of people each year suffer

much more serious, even fatal health damage from their own proprietary

drugs, all licensed, at vast expense, as being safe to use.

 

The Brussels directive completely changes the basis on which food

safety is regulated in Britain, by reversal of the burden of proof, as

under Napoleonic law. In this country you may sell any food, but you

face severe penalties if it proves to be damaging to health. Under the

Continental system, the burden of proof lies with the seller. You may

only sell what you are explicitly permitted to sell. Only the 112

products on the directive's so-called " positive list " will therefore

be legal.

 

Finally, the ECJ last week broke with its established practice and

overruled the opinion of its own Advocate-General, who had supported

those complaining that the directive breached European law. This was

because the ECJ is less a judicial than a political body. Its judges

are political appointees and many would not be qualified to sit as

judges in their own country. Their primary role is to support the

Commission. And if the Commission bows to the lobbying of the

pharmaceutical industry and produces a directive which will shut down

smaller competitors and deprive millions of Europeans of the right to

take the vitamin and mineral products they find beneficial, then the

ECJ knows where its duty lies.

The Sunday Telegraph, 17th July 2005

 

Further Resources:

 

The Real Face of the European Union by Phillip Day, video documentary

(PAL format only)

Ten Minutes to Midnight by Phillip Day

Vigilance by Ashley Mote