Last-ditch bid to block tough testing regime for vitamins

Date: 07/03/02

By Laurence Frost

PROPOSALS for rigorous testing of vitamins and mineral supplements go too far and will take hundreds of health products off the shelves, MEPs are warning.

Dutch Liberal Jules Maaten and his UK counterpart Chris Davies are tabling a last-minute amendment at next week's full session of the Parliament in Strasbourg to block the plans.

The proposal, put forward by Health Commissioner David Byrne, would require thorough testing for all ingredients not contained in a list of substances approved by Commission scientists.

It would also set new rules on the maximum dosages to be allowed and recommended to consumers.

Manufacturers claim that compiling data on hundreds of ingredients would incur prohibitive costs of up to €30 million per ingredient and prove impossible within the three-year deadline proposed in a report by German conservative Emilia Franziska Müller.

The Nutritional Supplements Association (NSA), representing the makers, warns that people with conditions such as osteoporosis - caused by bone mineral deficiency - could be denied an important source of relief.

'Modern research shows you need magnesium and boron in very specific forms to build up bones,' said NSA director Lisa Jennings.

'The rights of the consumer are being grossly infringed here.'

Jennings said that many minerals which patients found beneficial were either not on the proposed list, or were approved only in a form that was less easily absorbed than many new substances.

'A lot of the science they've used is about 50 years old and completely out of date,' she said. 'The Commission has simply taken an old list out of the drawer.'

Byrne's spokesman Thorsten Muench defended the proposal, maintaining that the 'great majority' of vitamin and mineral products now available were covered by the approved list. For non-listed substances, he said, 'manufacturers should be able to prove that their products are safe and effective. Consumer safety is our main objective'.

But Davies said there was growing support among MEPs for the view that the proposals were too heavy-handed and would damage consumer choice.

'Many people believe that supplements have given them a better quality of life in ways that conventional medicines haven't been able to,' the British MEP said.

'It shouldn't be for governments to tell people what they can and can't do, so long as they're not doing themselves any harm.'

He added that the planned rules were 'completely out of proportion' to the regulation of other substances such as alcohol, 'which caused 5,000 deaths from overdoses in the UK alone last year'.

Proposals for rigorous testing of vitamins and mineral supplements go too far and will take hundreds of health products off the shelves, MEPs are warning.