The EU regulatory pressure pot: a major threat to our future health
Tuesday 3rd February 2009
eBlast No 14
The pot is at bursting point!
The regulatory pressure pot that aims to stop 500 million Europeans accessing therapeutically useful natural health products is approaching bursting point.
Within two months we should see what vitamin and mineral dosages the European Commission aims to set as maximums across the EU.
January 2010 then signals the delayed ban of a host of vitamin and mineral forms that won't have been ‘proven’ safe or bioavailable. In nearly all cases, this is due to the sheer financial cost for the vast majority of innovative natural health companies that had previously been selling these products with no suggestion of any health risks, for decades in many instances.
In the same year, we'll see hundreds of health claims on foods and health products disappear, in the process losing invaluable information, which helps the consumer select healthier products, or foods for specific health benefits. Again, this will happen because a new EU regulation (the Nutrition & Health Claims Regulation) sets such onerous data requirements for proof as to be unachievable by most companies.
Simultaneously, the very same pressure pot wants to deliver us more and more genetically engineered food, increasingly being shown to pose very significant risks both to our health and the environment.
Topsy turvy decisions driven by big business?
You've got to wonder what's going on when safe, beneficial products are getting banned, dangerous ones are increasingly being pushed onto the market, our freedom speech is being severely handicapped and our democratic right to make choices about our health impinged. It beggars belief that European authorities have just approved for use in food supplements the form of fluoride used in toothpaste, the stuff we've been told for years not to swallow.
The ANH finds itself at the forefront of many of these challenges—which seem to be more about the profits of big businesses than they do about promoting good health. We're making headway in some areas, yet there is an inordinate amount of work to be done to cause a shift away from the anti-natural health, pro-pharmaceutical, pro-biotech trend being forced upon us by big corporates and big governments.
You are the key
It is you that holds the key. The more of us who change our behaviour and reject pharmaceuticals where safer natural alternatives can be used in their place, often more effectively, the quicker things will change. Staying healthy is also about getting the best foods available, and this often means reducing our reliance on the supermarket giants that are primarily interested in cheap, cosmetically attractive food with good transportation capability and shelf life. Nutrition is not a major concern for the supermarkets, nor is the need to keep genetically modified foods out of our food supply. Avoid the supermarkets where you can and, if possible, go to the farm gate or get local organically-produced produce delivered to your door via a 'box scheme'.
We'll be launching a petition from our website in the near future. We aim to show the unelected European central government and their satellite institutions and supportive Member States what consumers really want. As consumers, you hold the key. Without the fuel from consumer spending, the whole big corporate system falls like a pack of cards.
Key Consumer Actions:
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Help support the ANH’s future
Below are a selection of our latest news items to keep you up to speed with what the ANH has been doing to protect your freedom of choice in 2009.
In health, as always
The ANH Team
ANH Open Letter to the European Food Safety Authority
ANH poses specific questions to Europe's highest authority on food safety, after it gives a positive opinion on the food supplement use of the form of fluoride widely used in toothpaste.
ANH Press Release: 'Vitamin wars' debate rages in Ireland
The big debate on maximum vitamin levels in the EU rages on in Ireland, this time at the request of the Irish government, which faces criticism over its position. Dr Robert Verkerk of the ANH, Basil Mathioudakis, representing the European Commission, Dr Alan Ruth from the Irish Health Trade Association and Dr Mary Flynn, one of the key scientists influencing the Irish government's policies, were the invited speakers at the public meeting.
ANH Press Release: ANH calls for inquiry into EFSA work
ANH call follows EFSA decision to clear use of toothpaste toxin for food supplements. Read ANH's exposée of the EFSA opinion and that of independent scientist and doctor, Professor Vyvyan Howard (University of Ulster, Northern Ireland).
ANH Feature: Focus on Ayurveda – Part 2
Read Part 2 of the Focus on Ayurveda feature detailing the proceedings of the 3rd World Ayurveda Congress in Jaipur, Rajasthan, India (16-21st December 2008)—an integral part of ANH's ongoing campaign to nurture traditional medicinal cultures.
