BRITISH journalist Geoffrey Lean went out on a limb last week and submitted an excellent article to The Independent on Sunday (January 23) headed ‘Why do meddling Eurocrats want to ban your vitamin pills? Could it be anything to do with the drug giants hoping for huge profits?’ Much to his chagrin, The Independent chose to edit and factually alter the piece, rendering the article both incorrect and incomplete.
Incensed, Lean re-submitted his original article to the Daily Mail which printed it in full a few days later (January 25). One of Lean’s major concerns was that The Independent version edited out all mention of the Alliance for Natural Health whose work, he said “has been virtually airbrushed out of the news”.
The Alliance for Natural Health represents both consumers and producers in arguing that the European Union is exceeding its powers in trying to regulate the availability of some health supplements in UK and throughout the European Union. On the face of it, a common set of rules across the Union might seem like a good idea to us here in Cyprus, but not at the expense of freedom of choice and availability.
Every day millions of us swallow vitamins, mineral supplements and alternative medicines in the well founded belief that they will benefit our health. But in just six months, Europe’s favourite supplements could be outlawed by diktat of the European Union, aided and abetted by both the British and Greek Governments. Not without a little help from the pharmaceutical industry, which sees a golden opportunity to take control of a lucrative market.
Lean’s article continued: “From the beginning of August, thousands of popular products will disappear from UK shelves – allegedly on safety grounds – unless last-ditch attempts to save them succeed. It seems we are heading for an Alice Through the Looking Glass world, where it will be illegal for an adult to buy vitamin supplements but legal for a teenager to purchase cigarettes.”
Campaigners this month are asking the European Court of Justice to overrule the ban contained in a little-publicised EU directive. Celebrities like Dame Judi Dench, Bianca Jagger, Jenny Seagrove and Cherie Blair’s erstwhile guru, Carole Caplin, have also lobbied against it. But so far, every protest, every argument has fallen on tightly closed ears in Brussels, Whitehall and Downing Street.
Like all alternative medicines, mineral and vitamin pills provoke controversies, often stirred up by medical establishments and drug companies who fear people will prefer the ‘natural way’ to their expensive drugs. While studies have suggested that some alternative products may endanger health if taken at recklessly high doses, they are not in the same league as the damage caused by side-effects from prescription drugs. One authoritative study concludes this to be the fourth biggest cause of death in the United States, after heart disease, cancer and strokes.
Despite evidence from the American Medical Association that shows that some supplements do offer protection against killer diseases, eurocrats continue to plan to ban them, following intense lobbying by pharmaceutical companies.
The method is the Food Supplements Directive, a measure aimed at ‘harmonising’ trade. The Directive stipulates that no supplements can be sold after August 1 that contain minerals or vitamins unless they are on a restricted – and apparently illogical – ‘approved list’.
Amazingly, some truly controversial compounds such as sodium fluoride (used to kill pests) and caustic soda (used to clean drains) are on the list, while scores of safe, non-toxic ingredients believed to benefit health – like vanadium, silicon and boron – are excluded.
Campaigners calculate that about 300 of the 420 forms of minerals and vitamins contained in some 5,000 supplements on sale in Britain will be outlawed.
More often, Lean quotes the Alliance for Natural Health, ‘Relatively crude forms of minerals and vitamins are allowed, while the more sophisticated ones preferred by alternative medicine practitioners are banned. For example forms of iron known to cause stomach upsets in some people will be permitted, while ones taken up more easily by the body will be outlawed. And naturally occurring folic acid – found in spinach – will be banned, while the form sold by pharmaceutical companies will be allowed.’
Other products may escape the ban if special ‘safety dossiers’ on them are submitted. But the small companies that make them cannot afford the cost – at up to £250,000 an ingredient for products that may contain many.
The pharmaceutical companies win both ways. Competition from sophisticated alternative medicines will be greatly reduced and they will be well-placed to dominate any residual market for the supplements, as smaller firms are forced out of business.
Lean concludes: ‘And there is worse to come. For this is just the start of an EU bid to get rid of most alternative medicines; a similar ban on herbal pills is in the pipeline. As a long-standing supporter of the European ideal, I have to admit that the shameful story of the supplements illustrates the very abuse of power about which the sceptics have long warned’.
Nikki Dake is a Limassol-based complementary therapist: [email protected]
