EUROPE ENTERS A NUTRITION SCIENCE DARK AGE

[Guest guest]

http://www.newswithviews.com/Emord/jonathan109.htm

 

EUROPE ENTERS A NUTRITION SCIENCE DARK AGE

 

By Attorney Jonathan Emord

December 14, 2009

NewsWithViews.com

As the clock strikes 12:01AM on January 1, 2010, Europe will enter a nutrition

science Dark Age. The stultifying effects of that backward movement will hit

food and dietary supplement companies hard all around the world. The movement

toward replacing private choice with government fiat proceeds apace

internationally. Europe’s condemnation of food supplements and claims about

them is among the latest examples of that movement.

 

The nations of Europe gave up considerable national sovereignty to the European

Union a number of years ago. The members states have repeatedly reaped the

bitter fruit of that decision. One of those bitter fruits is about to fall from

the EU tree. The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), established to preside

over food supplements and claims for food supplements by the European

Commission, has determined that only a small percentage of food supplements is

sufficiently safe and bioavailable to remain on the European market. Under

European Commission regulations no food supplement may be lawfully sold anywhere

in Europe unless EFSA scientists opine that the food supplement is both safe and

bioavailable as “substantiated by generally accepted scientific evidence.â€

EFSA makes that determination in response to dossiers submitted from the

regulated companies. If no dossier is submitted for a nutrient either because

the science required cannot be obtained affordably or because no one has the

resources to pursue the claim, EFSA condemns the nutrient, deeming it

inappropriate for market.

 

Thus far out of over 40,000 dossiers submitted, EFSA has limited its

authorizations to certain vitamins and minerals and has rejected wholesale all

other vitamins, minerals, herbs and botanicals of various kinds. Moreover, it

has refused to allow claims of health benefit for a whole host of products.

These are the very same products that have been legally sold in Europe for

decades without any significant injury to the population. In short, EFSA is

achieving a massive constriction in the product and information offerings in the

European marketplace to the great detriment of European consumers. Fully

informed consumer choice is being wiped out. EFSA is dumbing down the European

marketplace, ridding it of substances that have improved the lives of Europeans

and of emerging science necessary to comprehend the potential health benefits of

food supplements.

 

This draconian system of prior restraint over products and scientific speech

deprives European consumers of the right to determine for themselves what food

elements to ingest and what credence to give emerging science concerning food

supplements. Those decisions are now being made by EFSA bureaucrats intolerant

of dissent from their new state orthodoxy on nutrition science.

 

EFSA is the nanny state writ large. Its scientists presume to know better than

all private scientists, all food supplement manufacturers, and all consumers

what is in the best interests of those consumers. In the real world of nutrition

science, virtually nothing can be said to have been proven to a conclusive

degree. Science, including nutrition science, is evolutionary and open to

debate. Scientists rarely agree on the extent to which a proposition backed by

studies is proven. Consequently, almost all of the emerging science on which

consumers depend to exercise informed choice is based on credible, but

inconclusive evidence. That should not surprise us because almost all medical

science upon which physicians make life and death decisions every day is

likewise in a realm of relative scientific uncertainty (lacking conclusive proof

to establish its efficacy). In steps, EFSA with its own brand of state certainty

substitutes its condemnatory judgment for free market exchanges, ridding the

market of nutrients and censoring from the market information indispensable to

the exercise of informed consumer choice.

 

The environment is one not of enlightenment or respect for individual rights. It

is not far from the mind set that preceded the Renaissance, a time when

Copernicus waxed bold by declaring that he thought the earth orbited the sun,

not the other way around. The church of old, like EFSA, views such claims of

emerging science with considerable skepticism and so censors them, depriving

citizens of a chance to judge for themselves the credibility of the claims.

When EFSA’s opinions become law through adoption by the European Commission,

European consumers are locked out of nutrition science debate. They are deprived

of emerging science and the right to exercise their own judgment as to the

relative worth of nutrition science speech offerings. Instead, state censors

keep the vast majority of science out of the market and permit here and there

dribs and drabs to enter, skewing the information marketplace in ways they

favor. Thus, an elitist guard possesses a monopoly on information access and

deigns paternalistically to provide the public a small sampling it thinks

“safe†for European consumption. This gross example of censorship offends

the very notion of individual liberty. Europeans are thus enslaved anew by an

anti-Enlightenment philosophy that regards government as the end all be all in

the universe of food and nutrition science.

 

Depriving European consumers of emerging science leads to decisions in the

market that either presume health benefits to be greater than they likely are or

conversely to be non-existent. When science is kept from the point of sale,

consumers tend to base decisions on non-scientific factors, such as taste or

superstition. If I am ignorant of the health benefits of carotenoids and fiber

in a carrot, why would I choose a carrot over a twinkie? The twinkie tastes so

much better. Enlightened minds can make that election, choosing either to favor

taste over science or science over taste. Not so if information that leads to

enlightenment is illegal to obtain at the point of sale.

 

We should not think this matter limited to Europe. Not only do we depend

mightily on access to European markets for our food stuffs but we also depend on

European food stuffs here that may disappear as a result of EFSA’s new

draconian limitations.

 

At a time of recession when we can scarce afford new significant limits to

markets, Europe is eliminating a significant sector of its food supplement

marketplace. American dietary supplements will be blocked from import and

enjoined from selling dietary supplements all across Europe. There will be

resultant lost profits here and unemployment. Likewise, import markets in the

United States dependent on European food supplements are going to be awakened

rudely to the fact that products legally sold before New Year’s are no longer

lawfully saleable.

 

Certain ranking members of Congress and leading political managers at the Food

and Drug Administration are infatuated with the European example. They would

like nothing better than to replicate it here through harmonization of American

laws with those of the European Union.

 

The world of food regulation, like so much of the world, is now marching

steadily in the direction of state control and away from individual liberty.

Access to products with health enhancing features will be far more difficult in

Europe and in the United States in the months and years to come. Nutrition

science will remain locked out of the marketplace to the grave detriment of

consumers, causing only an information elite to benefit from knowledge of how

certain nutrients can extend longevity and reduce the incidence of disease.

 

This process of bureaucratic expansion and assumption of jurisdictional control

over matters previously governed by individual private decision making is an

insidious encroachment that replaces freedom with servility. If we can neither

be allowed to choose for consumption foods and food elements freely nor be

allowed access at the point of sale to information concerning the potential of

those substances to extend longevity and reduce disease risk, we can hardly call

ourselves free. Does anyone seriously doubt that the decision of what to eat and

the right of access to basic information on the health effects of what we eat

are fundamental to human liberty?

 

Europes move back into a Dark Age in the field of nutrition science should alarm

us. Although we cannot but feel the adverse impact of the European restrictions,

we can only hope that the full brunt of the new Dark Age enveloping Europe is

confined to that continent, not welcomed here courtesy of sympathetic agents in

our Food and Drug Administration.

 

© 2009 Jonathan W. Emord -

[Guest guest]

Bea ,

Thanks for posting. Will these folks ever give up!

Mary

 

Bea Bernhausen wrote:

 

 

http://www.newswithviews.com/Emord/jonathan109.htm

 

EUROPE ENTERS A NUTRITION SCIENCE DARK AGE

 

By Attorney Jonathan Emord

December 14, 2009

NewsWithViews.com

As the clock strikes 12:01AM on January 1, 2010, Europe will enter a

nutrition science Dark Age. The stultifying effects of that backward

movement will hit food and dietary supplement companies hard all around

the world. The movement toward replacing private choice with government

fiat proceeds apace internationally. Europe’s condemnation of food

supplements and claims about them is among the latest examples of that

movement.

 

The nations of Europe gave up considerable national sovereignty to the

European Union a number of years ago. The members states have

repeatedly reaped the bitter fruit of that decision. One of those

bitter fruits is about to fall from the EU tree. The European Food

Safety Authority (EFSA), established to preside over food supplements

and claims for food supplements by the European Commission, has

determined that only a small percentage of food supplements is

sufficiently safe and bioavailable to remain on the European market.

Under European Commission regulations no food supplement may be

lawfully sold anywhere in Europe unless EFSA scientists opine that the

food supplement is both safe and bioavailable as “substantiated by

generally accepted scientific evidence.†EFSA makes that determination

in response to dossiers submitted from the regulated companies. If no

dossier is submitted for a nutrient either because the science required

cannot be obtained affordably or because no one has the resources to

pursue the claim, EFSA condemns the nutrient, deeming it inappropriate

for market.

 

Thus far out of over 40,000 dossiers submitted, EFSA has limited its

authorizations to certain vitamins and minerals and has rejected

wholesale all other vitamins, minerals, herbs and botanicals of various

kinds. Moreover, it has refused to allow claims of health benefit for a

whole host of products. These are the very same products that have been

legally sold in Europe for decades without any significant injury to

the population. In short, EFSA is achieving a massive constriction in

the product and information offerings in the European marketplace to

the great detriment of European consumers. Fully informed consumer

choice is being wiped out. EFSA is dumbing down the European

marketplace, ridding it of substances that have improved the lives of

Europeans and of emerging science necessary to comprehend the potential

health benefits of food supplements.

 

This draconian system of prior restraint over products and scientific

speech deprives European consumers of the right to determine for

themselves what food elements to ingest and what credence to give

emerging science concerning food supplements. Those decisions are now

being made by EFSA bureaucrats intolerant of dissent from their new

state orthodoxy on nutrition science.

 

EFSA is the nanny state writ large. Its scientists presume to know

better than all private scientists, all food supplement manufacturers,

and all consumers what is in the best interests of those consumers. In

the real world of nutrition science, virtually nothing can be said to

have been proven to a conclusive degree. Science, including nutrition

science, is evolutionary and open to debate. Scientists rarely agree on

the extent to which a proposition backed by studies is proven.

Consequently, almost all of the emerging science on which consumers

depend to exercise informed choice is based on credible, but

inconclusive evidence. That should not surprise us because almost all

medical science upon which physicians make life and death decisions

every day is likewise in a realm of relative scientific uncertainty

(lacking conclusive proof to establish its efficacy). In steps, EFSA

with its own brand of state certainty substitutes its condemnatory

judgment for free market exchanges, ridding the market of nutrients and

censoring from the market information indispensable to the exercise of

informed consumer choice.

 

The environment is one not of enlightenment or respect for individual

rights. It is not far from the mind set that preceded the Renaissance,

a time when Copernicus waxed bold by declaring that he thought the

earth orbited the sun, not the other way around. The church of old,

like EFSA, views such claims of emerging science with considerable

skepticism and so censors them, depriving citizens of a chance to judge

for themselves the credibility of the claims.

When EFSA’s opinions become law through adoption by the European

Commission, European consumers are locked out of nutrition science

debate. They are deprived of emerging science and the right to exercise

their own judgment as to the relative worth of nutrition science speech

offerings. Instead, state censors keep the vast majority of science out

of the market and permit here and there dribs and drabs to enter,

skewing the information marketplace in ways they favor. Thus, an

elitist guard possesses a monopoly on information access and deigns

paternalistically to provide the public a small sampling it thinks

“safe†for European consumption. This gross example of censorship

offends the very notion of individual liberty. Europeans are thus

enslaved anew by an anti-Enlightenment philosophy that regards

government as the end all be all in the universe of food and nutrition

science.

 

Depriving European consumers of emerging science leads to decisions in

the market that either presume health benefits to be greater than they

likely are or conversely to be non-existent. When science is kept from

the point of sale, consumers tend to base decisions on non-scientific

factors, such as taste or superstition. If I am ignorant of the health

benefits of carotenoids and fiber in a carrot, why would I choose a

carrot over a twinkie? The twinkie tastes so much better. Enlightened

minds can make that election, choosing either to favor taste over

science or science over taste. Not so if information that leads to

enlightenment is illegal to obtain at the point of sale.

 

We should not think this matter limited to Europe. Not only do we

depend mightily on access to European markets for our food stuffs but

we also depend on European food stuffs here that may disappear as a

result of EFSA’s new draconian limitations.

 

At a time of recession when we can scarce afford new significant limits

to markets, Europe is eliminating a significant sector of its food

supplement marketplace. American dietary supplements will be blocked

from import and enjoined from selling dietary supplements all across

Europe. There will be resultant lost profits here and unemployment.

Likewise, import markets in the United States dependent on European

food supplements are going to be awakened rudely to the fact that

products legally sold before New Year’s are no longer lawfully saleable.

 

Certain ranking members of Congress and leading political managers at

the Food and Drug Administration are infatuated with the European

example. They would like nothing better than to replicate it here

through harmonization of American laws with those of the European

Union.

 

The world of food regulation, like so much of the world, is now

marching steadily in the direction of state control and away from

individual liberty. Access to products with health enhancing features

will be far more difficult in Europe and in the United States in the

months and years to come. Nutrition science will remain locked out of

the marketplace to the grave detriment of consumers, causing only an

information elite to benefit from knowledge of how certain nutrients

can extend longevity and reduce the incidence of disease.

 

This process of bureaucratic expansion and assumption of jurisdictional

control over matters previously governed by individual private decision

making is an insidious encroachment that replaces freedom with

servility. If we can neither be allowed to choose for consumption foods

and food elements freely nor be allowed access at the point of sale to

information concerning the potential of those substances to extend

longevity and reduce disease risk, we can hardly call ourselves free.

Does anyone seriously doubt that the decision of what to eat and the

right of access to basic information on the health effects of what we

eat are fundamental to human liberty?

 

Europes move back into a Dark Age in the field of nutrition science

should alarm us. Although we cannot but feel the adverse impact of the

European restrictions, we can only hope that the full brunt of the new

Dark Age enveloping Europe is confined to that continent, not welcomed

here courtesy of sympathetic agents in our Food and Drug Administration.

 

� 2009 Jonathan W. Emord -

[Guest guest]

Not until they've involved ALL of us, I'd wager.

 

 

 

herbal remedies , Mary Ostrowski <mary wrote:

>

>

> Bea ,

> Thanks for posting. Will these folks ever give up!

> Mary

>

> Bea Bernhausen wrote:

> >

> >

> > http://www.newswithviews.com/Emord/jonathan109.htm

> > <http://www.newswithviews.com/Emord/jonathan109.htm>

> >

> > EUROPE ENTERS A NUTRITION SCIENCE DARK AGE

> >