The European Union is currently deliberating how to limit dosages of vitamins and minerals available in the Community. The move is mandated by the food supplements directive, which came into force in 2004. The directive regulates the commerce of nutrient-dense food supplements but full implementation is still years away, expected to take hold in the year 2010. Temporary permission for hundreds of specific forms of vitamins and minerals used in supplements for decades, for which 'dossiers' were required to be submitted, will run out in 2009. The deliberations on dosage limits are expected to come to a conclusion that same year.
Kyprianou's office has received a large number of letters from concerned consumers, who do not like the prospect of having to switch from vitamin C to lemon juice. The letters have solicited a response.
The Commissioner's 'detailed reply' however does not address specific consumer concerns. It reads like a plea for people to stop bothering the Commission while it does its important work. Well worn phrases like supplements are "intended for supplementing the normal diet" and they should be "safe and provide a wide choice to consumers" are little consolation to those of us who use nutrients at higher than normal doses to keep illness away and support an active and healthy life style.
Both the Commission's 'discussion paper' on dosages and the responses to its call for input from member states and stakeholders - industry, trade and consumers - but not the letters from individual consumers, are linked from that same page.
This episode recalls an earlier reply to consumers available on this site by the previous EU Commissioner, David Byrne, given during the deliberations for passage of the food supplements directive. Byrne similarly assured us that nothing untoward was going to happen - that the new regulations were going to be all for the best, that consumers would have a wide choice and be safe in the knowledge of being 'protected' by the authorities.
If the objective of the European Commission really was to provide "a wide choice" of (safe) supplements, why can't they leave good enough alone and turn their legislative fervor to other, more worthwhile targets? Supplement safety is not problematic, as evidenced by actual statistics. If anyone took their legislative work seriously, they would act according to the maxim: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it".
On the other hand, registered medicines are tightly controlled and patented and have given rise to a multi-mega profitable industry, yet they kill - in the United States alone - over 100.000 people every year. There is no question that they are unsafe. Now here would be a fruitful field of endeavor for our busy European legislators.
Why fuss over the dosages of nutrients that haven't killed anyone in decades, when the very industry that is supposed to prevent and treat illness is so far off the track? All the Commissioner has to say is that food supplements "are intended for supplementing the normal diet rather than having therapeutic effects". So it's ok for medicines to kill, but supplements better not have any curative effects - that would impinge negatively on the monopoly of medicines.
Could it be that the medical/pharmaceutical industry has regulators and legislators firmly in its pocket? Is the very industry that has become a leading cause of injury and death directing legislators' attention towards the supposed dangers of those nasty nutrients, to hide the very real skeletons in its own closets?
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Answer to the letters addressed to Commissioner Kyprianou concerning the establishment of maximum amounts in food supplements
In the context of the exercise for the establishment of maximum and minimum amounts of vitamins and minerals in foodstuffs and in particular in food supplements, several letters have been addressed to Commissioner Kyprianou. With this answer we provide a collective reply to all letters.
First of all, the Directorate General Health and Consumer Protection would like to emphasize that the main aim of the food supplements Directive is to ensure that food supplements placed on the market are safe and provide a wide choice to consumers to supplement their diet.
Moreover, it is important to note that food supplements are regulated as food and are intended for supplementing the normal diet rather than having therapeutic effects. In fact, claims as to treatment, cure or prevention of disease would not be allowed for food supplements and would place the product under the legal framework of medicines.
We can confirm that we have initiated the works for the establishment of the maximum amounts of vitamins and minerals in food supplements, as foreseen by Article 5 of the abovementioned Directive, where the criteria to be considered in this exercise are also listed.
We have recently published a discussion paper on the establishment of maximum and minimum amounts of vitamins and minerals in foods where we have identified the issues to be considered and invited all interested parties to provide their view by 30 September 20061. We are currently analysing the answers received2.
Furthermore, we can reassure that in this exercise of setting the maximum levels for vitamins and minerals in food supplements at Community level, we will consider with the utmost care all existing national rules and will endeavour to incorporate in the measures as much flexibility as is compatible with the principles of the internal market.
1 Discussion paper
2 Stakeholder responses received by the Commission
(You can find La Leva's comments on this list of 'stakeholder responses')
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And here some information on how four pieces of recent European legislation have a serious impact on natural medicine and on our nutritional means of staying healthy, as compiled by the Alliance for Natural Health.
EU LEGISLATION AND NATURAL HEALTH - The good, the bad and the ugly (PDF)
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