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3rd JULY 2003, the European Food Supplements
Directive was passed into English Law, which
will, over the next few years, effectively ban around
5000 discrete products currently legal to sell in
health food shops and pharmacies. This Directive
has been devised and pushed forward by the unelected
EU bureaucrats in order to "harmonize" the
selling of health supplements throughout the EU,
and was railroaded through the British Parliament
by the Blair Government despite being rejected by
the House of Lords. The way that the Government passed
it was outrageous: just before the vote by the Standing
Committee in the House of Commons, five Labour MPs
who were going to vote against it were replaced by
more obedient MPs. Even then, this directive was
only passed by 8 votes to 6!
So it seems that the European Parliament and the
present UK Government are determined to pass the
Food Supplements Directive despite the will of the
people and even of MPs themselves. Why? Because it
is the will of the EU Parliament which is very strongly
influenced by the massive pharmaceutical companies
in Europe. They are the only ones that will financially
gain from the destruction of the health supplement
industry. After all, people who take responsibility
for their own health by taking supplements need less
drugs because they are healthier.
It is ironic that the Malnutrition Advisory Group
has recently released a report showing that about
2 million people in the UK(!), including 60% of hospital
patients, are not getting adequate nutrition and
they admit that this is severally affecting their
health and ability to heal. Of course, they don't
mention supplements because they are still under
the false and dangerous impression that this fictitious
thing called a "well-balanced diet" exists
that can adequately supply all the nutrients that
the body needs. Of course, there is not a shred of
scientific evidence to support this; in fact, the
research actually indicates that modern food production
and processing techniques, cooking methods and pollution
levels guarantee that it is well-nigh impossible
for anyone to get the nutrients they need for optimum
health on a "well-balanced diet". (And if
you can't get optimum nutrition using ingredients
from the supermarket, how on earth are you going
to find it in a disgusting NHS hospital slop canteen!)
Given this terrible state of modern nutrition, it
is astonishing that our governments are trying to
move legislation towards a vastly reduced availability
of nutritional supplements. What is going on?
Many of us have been protesting about these proposals
for the past five years, writing letters to our MPs
and MEPs, signing million signature petitions and
even marching on Parliament here in London. Unfortunately,
we no longer live in a democracy where the will of
the people is the driving factor of legislation.
The EU Parliament is not interested in personal freedom,
or even personal health… only control and more
control. And they have tried to justify this assault
on our rights to take supplements on the grounds
of our safety, even though health supplements have
a safety record second to none — see LaLeva's Safety of Dietary Supplements and Comparative Safety Graph. And given their incredible
safety, it is rather odd that the tabloid newspapers
have been running sensational headlines over the
past few years on the dangers of nutritional supplements.
(I wonder who is behind those media campaigns?)
Already, the supplement market in Germany and Norway
are severely controlled, and it is illegal, for example,
to buy Vitamin C over 200mg in strength because it
is considered by Brussels to be unnecessary, although
of course, it is very necessary for the population
to continue to buy cigarettes and alcohol as they
are very healthy for governments' bank accounts.
I have just heard (10/3/04) from a very reliable
source that a woman has been arrested in France for
selling 500mg tablets of Vitamin C because in that
country doses of that strength are now considered
medicinal! (There is absolutely no safety issue with
Vitamin C and you can freely buy 1000mg tablets here
in the UK and US at the moment… I take 3 a
day.) Soon, these sorts of controls will be pan-European,
and you will only be able to buy from a small and
bland list of ineffective, inorganic supplements
and in doses that the EU diktat considers appropriate.
Many innovative products and companies will simply
disappear, and it will become much harder for each
of us to take responsibility for our health.
So what can we do to preserve the rights of each
individual to take responsibility for his or her
own health? Protesting is always a good place to
start and one should never underestimate the effect
of letters to MPs and MEPs. However, this legislation
seems to have so far been pushed through despite
the people's and MPs opposition. The Government has
an agenda that they are not going to give up just
because it is unpopular. This is where The
Alliance for Natural Health comes in.
The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) is
a pan-European and international organization of
scientists, practitioners, lawyers, public relations
and media experts working specifically to amend European
legislation in order to maintain the availability
of innovative, safe and effective food supplements. ANH feel
that the time for lobbying is unfortunately over
as The Food Supplements Directive has already
been passed (undemocratically) by Parliament, and
so they have now issued legal proceedings against
the directive in the High Court in London using top
lawyers — Brick Court Chambers and The Simkins
Partnership. For more information on the ANH and
for ways that you can help (including giving a much
needed donation), please visit their website at www.alliance-natural-health.org and,
if you can, please donate to the legal fund. Recently,
they won an important victory in the UK courts giving
them the right to take it to the European Courts.
Today, we are fighting for our right to buy health
supplements; tomorrow, we will be fighting for our
right to voice dissent. In March 2001, for example,
the European Court of Justice ruled that the European
union can lawfully suppress political criticism of
its institutions and of leading figures, sweeping
aside English Common Law and 50 years of European
precedents on civil liberties (Ambrose Evans-Pritchard).
And those outside the EU must not be too complacent,
this directive is actually the tip of the iceberg
of a larger directive called "Codex" put
forward by the World Health Organization to take
away health freedom worldwide for everyone, including
those in the United States and Canada (visit the International
Advocate for Health Freedom).
For ways to be more involved, please visit some
of the links on the top right of this page. This
is a time when we need to unfortunately fight for
our right to have access to the tools to remain in
optimum health, and fight it in a largely undemocratic
environment. But if enough of us (including the public,
doctors and health companies) actively resist government
and pharmaceutical control, and support organisatios
like the ANH, together we will preserve that most
fundamental of human rights… to be healthy.
Andrew P
editor
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