Food Supplements: Too Much Precaution May Be Bad For Your Health

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Health

Legislation

After the passage, in 2002, of Europe-wide regulations for food supplements, the Alliance for Natural Health has argued before the European Court of Justice that vitamin and mineral supplements are innocent - not to be condemned or worse eradicated by bureaucratic red tape. The court decided in July 2005, surprisingly disregarding the opinion of its own Advocate general, who had called for the directive to be declared illegitimate, commenting that some of its regulations have a degree of transparency comparable to that of a black box.

While there are important clarifications in the court's decision that give hope for the future, many of the crucial decisions about the destiny of nutritional supplements in Europe depend on how much precaution will be exercised to protect us from the supposed hazards of the safest products that can be found on the market today.

The EU Court, in its decision, cited the "precautionary principle" as the reason why the restrictive European supplements law may stand. Looking at the origin of the principle, which was formulated in the face of toxic contamination and other threats to our survival, it would seem somewhat out of place to apply such a rule to - of all things - food supplements!

Perhaps the EU bureaucracy is still suffering from shell shock over the outbreak of mad cow disease some years ago ... or perhaps the watering-down of proposed rules to control toxic chemicals in the face of industry opposition needs to be balanced by "action" in some other field - the fact is the court quashed high hopes and confirmed a monstrous piece of legislation, overriding the voice of reason provided by its Advocate general.

Bert Schwitters has examined the court's sentence in detail. He tells us what the decision means for supplements and how consumers of healthy foods will likely end up ... in "no-choice-land". Unless, of course ... we find a way to make reason prevail and make the "risk analysis" that is to be performed on supplements do its job properly, including the initial evaluation: "Is there a problem at all?"

To quote Ron Law, risk assessment expert and policy consultant in New Zealand:

"Consuming natural healthcare products" says Ron Law, "appears to satisfy both the de minimis level of risk at a societal level (0.25 deaths per year on average; 1/120 th the de minimis level) and an individual risk of 0.015 per million, or 1/67 th of the de minimis risk level, and yet they have been reclassified via contentious regulation [in Canada] as a subset of drugs which appear to be some 250,000 times riskier. There appears to be no evidential basis for such regulation and regulating them in the same mindset as high risk substances may well produce risks of its own, especially regarding freedom of choice, and loss of benefits due to reduced product availability."

Bert Schwitters has put his money where his mouth is. He is sponsoring a scientific research project, an evaluation of the available legislative options for ensuring the safety of nutrients without sending garlic and vitamin C to the gallows.

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The ‘Framing’ of Food Supplements in the EU
From the frying pan into the fire of ‘Precautionary Principle’ and ‘Risk Assessment’

by Bert Schwitters
12 October 2005

In this article, Bert Schwitters, Dutch author and businessman, describes in intimate detail how the EU plans to remove some of the most effective natural products from the market, through the misuse of the Precautionary Principle. He uses his insight to the complex range of scientific and legal issues that have developed following his 25-year sojourn with the European food supplements industry. During the 1980s, Bert helped to lay the foundations for the Dutch Association of Natural Products Manufacturers (NPN). His company, International Nutrition Company (INC), sponsors the HAN Research project, which is reviewing independently the entire framework of EU and international food supplements regulation. INC, dedicated this scientific research project to the Alliance for Natural Health. Bert wrote this article for the Alliance on personal title.

On July 12, 2005, when millions of Europeans happily began their holidays travelling through their frontier-less Europe or “Schengenland”, the European Court of Justice gave its blessing to a European Directive that would, had it applied to travelling, have confined millions of law-abiding, legitimate citizens of some of the Member States to their home country. The Directive, which concerns food supplements, the products you know as nutrients in capsules or tablets, professes to seek a “Schengen” type removal of the archaic national frontiers that have always impeded the free movement of food supplements in Europe, especially from Member States that permitted liberal amounts of essential nutrients in such products, to European states that applied more restrictive regimes. Now that the holidays are over and we have all returned to our day-to-day reality, let’s see what that reality will bring Europeans in terms of vitamins and mineral supplements.

Extra Visa for Baby-food nutrients

In “Schengen” terminology, by approving the framework and effects of the Food Supplement Directive, the European Court of Justice did indeed remove the national frontiers for a relatively small number of predominantly synthetic forms of vitamins and minerals. In fact, the nutrients that were selected for free movement by the makers of the Directive had already been given “Schengen” status years before, be it that they were allowed to cross Europe’s old frontiers only when used as additives in baby-foods. Baby-food and food supplements are entirely different product categories, but the authors of the Food Supplement Directive didn’t mind. With the stroke of a pen they gave the baby-food vitamins and minerals an extra “visa” permitting them to now pass the old national barriers in food supplement form as well. Sounds fine, one would be inclined to think, but by limiting the “Schengenizing” of nutrients to baby-food additives only, all other food supplement nutrients were sent to the guillotine. Thus, the Directive, that came to be known as the Food Supplement Directive, effectively knocked out a considerable number of safe food supplements, even in the countries where they were once legitimately sold. The old system prevented the free movement of safe and legitimate products in Europe. The new system kills many of these safe and legitimate products even in their countries of origin.

How could that happen? Why does a Directive that has harmonization and free movement on its banner produce the contrary?

Directives are Orders

Most Europeans don’t realize that their daily lives are already governed by many thousands of “directives” written by the many thousands of bureaucrats who occupy the many floors of the high rises that mark the legislative horizon of our unelected European Government. Most Europeans never consider the fact that the synonym for “directive” is “an order issued by the government or a military unit.” Every day, invisible, nameless and faceless bureaucrats issue European Orders that influence the details of our daily lives. Indeed, there is supposed to be some token gesture for democracy in the EU law-making process. The European Parliament comprised of over 600 elected Members, must sign off. And so it did, when, on 10 June 2002, it approved the European Food Supplement Order to make arrangements for the free movement of food supplements.

And so, with Organized Industry well on board to make the best of it, the train was set in motion, to criss-cross a frontier-less future. In true Potemkin style, the wagons were clearly marked: FOOD SUPPLEMENTS. And so, officials rushed the Food Supplements Train across European borders to demonstrate their deep respect for the most essential principle on which the Founding Fathers erected the European Union: Free Movement. Where it stopped, there was fanfare and champagne. Yet, it was a façade that hid the fact that although the FOOD SUPPLEMENT wagons should have been filled to the brim with plenty of safe, healthy and legitimately sold food supplements, the train was more or less empty. It was a charade that left a few guessing about what was really going on.

Nutrients are beneficial and life supporting

To put things in perspective, the Food Supplement Directive deals with concentrated sources of nutrients and other dietary compounds that are generally recognized as vital, beneficial, life supporting and safe. That’s why many millions of consumers around the world supplement their daily diet with these nutritional basics which the body itself cannot produce and modern food often lacks. These nutritional elements are essential and you can’t do without them. In their absence, minor, major and life-threatening diseases are bound to occur. It is only in their bountiful presence th