Fwd: German Risk model on supplement levels prompts concern for EU law: WHAT ...

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IAHF Webmaster: Codex Emergency, All Countries, Breaking News, Codex, EU FSD,

What to Do

 

IAHF List: In the article below, the UK Based Alliance for Natural Health

skewers a recent German report calling for mindless restrictions on allowable

potency levels of vitamins and minerals. ANH will be in the European Court of

Justice on Tuesday, January 25th 2005 for purposes of NUKING the hated EU Food

Supplements Directive into total OBLIVION.

 

HOW YOU CAN HELP:

1) Their attorneys have jacked their fees on them, and ANH needs EMERGENCY

INFUSIONS of cold hard cash to pay the varmints, but at least they're highly

SKILLED varments !!!

Please send them EMERGENCY INFUSIONS of money via their secure server at

http://www.alliance-natural-health.org

 

2) I'll be in the courtroom covering what happens for Life Extension Magazine,

and I'm going to be interviewing key people to get a complete story. The

exchange rate between the US Dollar and the Euro is atrocious for me. LEF is

paying my airfare and hotel, but I need your help for other expenses. Please

donate to IAHF via paypal at http://www.iahf.com You will see the paypal button

on the top of the scrollbar inside the site.

I'm in your corner folks, I'm up at 6 am checking email, and sending these

emergency alerts world wide. Be there for me, and I'll keep bein' there for all

of you wonderful people.

 

Be SURE to watch the DVD " Push Back from CODEX CLIFF " at

http://www.glycommunity.com/iahf and order copies to educate all the health food

store owners in your area. The American supplement industry is being led to the

cliff from within.

 

3) IF YOU ARE IN THE UNITED KINGDOM: It is IMPERATIVE that you follow ANH's

EMERGENCY INSTRUCTIONS BELOW: (and below their instructions ALL of you will find

a WONDERFULLY UPLIFTING ARTICLE THAT YOU MUST SNOWBALL!!!

 

URGENT - ACTION NEEDED THIS WEEKEND BY UK CITIZENS

Please pass on this message to your friends – distribute as widely as you can to

UK contacts

 

We are sending this message to seek your urgent assistance with the campaign to

stop the EU Food Supplements Directive’s proposed ban on 75% of vitamin and

mineral forms, found in some 5000 products currently sold in UK health stores

and via practitioners.

 

We will be in the European Court in Luxembourg on 25 January defending our

landmark case to overturn the ban.

 

On the same evening of our case, this coming Tuesday, to coincide with the legal

action being taken in Luxembourg, Conservative MP Chris Grayling and Labour MP

Kate Hoey will lead a cross-Party effort to force the Government to renegotiate

the Directive and end the threat to most bioavailable forms of vitamins and

minerals in the UK.

 

The Opposition have given up half a day of the time allocated to them for this

debate, and it will provide an opportunity for MPs to vote against the Directive

and to instruct the Government to go back to Brussels and renegotiate its

provisions.

 

We need your help. We need to put as much pressure on MPs as possible to vote

with us on Tuesday. Please can you send an email to your own MP at Westminster

over the weekend or before Tuesday lunchtime urging them to back the motion and

to oppose the Directive.

 

The email address for MPs works in the following way: the surname and the

initial followed by @parliament.uk. So John Reid, the Health Secretary's email

address would be reidj and the Junior Minister involved, Melanie

Johnson's would be johnsonm.

 

You might like to send an email to both of them as well.

 

If you don't know who your MP is, please go to:

http://www.locata.co.uk/commons/and type in your postcode.

 

Please give us your help. The Alliance for Natural Health, and its collaborating

organisations in Europe and around the world, are in the last-chance saloon for

leading-edge food (dietary) supplements. We have to get the UK Government - who

are opposing our case in teh European Court -to listen.

 

And if they won't, we need to let them know how angry we are.

 

Thanks in anticipation of your help.

 

 

Dr Robert Verkerk

executive director

Alliance for Natural Health

info

www.alliance-natural-health.org SEE UPLIFTING ARTICLE BELOW & PLEASE

SNOWBALL!!

 

http://nutraingredients.com/news/ng-nocache.asp?id=57472

 

Breaking News on Supplements, Nutrition & Healthy Foods

 

Previous page : Risk model on supplement levels prompts concern for EU law

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Risk model on supplement levels prompts concern for EU law

 

20/01/2005 - The first attempt in Europe to set maximum safe levels for

nutrients in supplements and fortified foods demonstrates that numerous products

could be considered unsafe if the same approach is adopted across the European

community.

 

Scientists at Germany’s Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) gathered

data on dietary habits in Germany and nutrient levels in the current food supply

and substracted these from the upper safe levels (USL) of nutrients determined

by the EU’s Scientific Committee on Food.

Their conclusions, published in a 341-page report this week, suggest that

supplements should contain a maximum level of 225 mg vitamin C, 5.4 mg of

vitamin B6 and 9 mcg of vitamin B12. All of these vitamins are sold at

considerably higher dosages – up to 1000mg for vitamin C and 300 mcg for B12 -

in supplements on several European markets.

 

While the report is designed for review by German food authorities, it is also

likely to be considered by European regulators charged with developing maximum

safe levels for nutrients under both the 2002 food supplements directive and a

proposed regulation on fortified foods.

 

No other member state has carried out such work, making the German study a

valuable resource for the European Food Safety Authority in the future.

 

However natural healthcare association the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH)

claims the data is “meaningless for the majority of the population”.

 

The group has previously contested the science used by the SCF to draw up upper

safe levels for nutrients. It says that the German institute has gone on to

reduce further these levels by taking into account dietary intakes and

susceptible population groups, and ended up with “unreasonably low maximum

recommended levels for food supplements”.

 

Dr Robert Verkerk, executive director of the ANH, told NutraIngredients.com: “We

have always been concerned that this approach, [as proposed in article 5 of the

food supplements directive], would end up with very low levels and the German

report shows that it does.”

 

David Adams, chair of the UK’s Health Food Manufacturers Association (HFMA),

agreed that “the figures look terribly low”.

 

“The UK trade obviously wishes to see maximum safe levels that are in line with

established UK practice,” he added, noting that the assocation had had “very

constructive discussions” with the UK’s Food Standards Agency after an expert

group (known as the EVM) produced guidance levels for supplement nutrients in

2003.

 

The discussions resulted in a system of advisory statements, currently found on

supplement labels in the UK to warn consumers of potential risks, a welcome

alternative to banning high dose supplements altogether.

 

The German report has clear implications for the UK industry, one of Europe’s

largest, which offers supplements at higher doses than many other member states.

 

Dr Verkerk points out a number of problems from the approach used by the BfR,

particularly in their grouping together of nutrients and populations for

efficiency purposes.

 

“If you look at iron types as a group, the data for the most toxic form is

applied across the board. So the toxic ferrous sulphate impacts data on iron

bisglycinate, [considered lower risk].”

 

“You are also looking at the most susceptible population groups, such as in the

case of beta-carotene. Some of the main data on this nutrient comes from trials

including smokers and asbestos workers, naturally at higher risk of disease.”

 

Subjecting the whole population to the same risk assessment as more susceptible

groups skews the safety data to levels that are unnecessarily low for most

people, he suggests.

 

Dr Verkerk believes that regulators should initially focus on high risk

nutrients as a priority.

 

“Risk management is about focusing energy on high risk problems. We should focus

specifically on the 30-40 high risk nutrient forms, such as the fat-soluble

vitamins and some potentially toxic mineral forms like selenium and zinc, and

develop a risk assessment system for these as the first move forward,” he said.

 

“But to also include vitamin B12 in this is crazy. Even the SCF could not impose

a safe upper level on this nutrient.”

 

Dutch food authorities have set a precedent for this kind of approach, added

Verkerk, by allowing all supplements to be sold as food, and only imposing

limits on the small number of nutrients like certain vitamins known to present

risk in high doses.

 

“I take my hat off to the BfR. They are the only people to have taken risk

assessment to the second stage, and risk is certainly far better than the

previous approach to safety, using RDAs, " added Dr Verkerk.

 

" But this will be a huge wake-up call for industry. "

 

The German food industry association BLL said it had not had time to digest the

report but noted that the findings would be open for comment and did not

represent a conclusion on the issue.

 

Lorene Courrege, director of regulatory affairs at the European health product

manufacturers association (EHPM), said she was waiting to see what the German

health minister does with the report before assessing its impact on the EU food

safety authority.

 

EFSA is aiming to produce its initial conclusions on maximum safe levels for the

food supplements directive in the autumn, after the directive has actually come

into force in August.

 

The FAO/WHO has also recently issued a consultation on the subject of risk

assessment of nutrients to form the basis of Codex guidelines.

For Health Freedom,

John C. Hammell, President

International Advocates for Health Freedom

556 Boundary Bay Road

Point Roberts, WA 98281-8702 USA

http://www.iahf.com

jham

800-333-2553 N.America

360-945-0352 World

 

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