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EU: Vitamins and Minerals To Be Banned?
From time to time, an issue comes along that is so important that we have to devote a newsletter to it, in preference to promoting our products for our short term interest. This is one of those times. The banning of something as innocuous as vitamins and minerals. Sems incredible doesn't it? Would and could the EU really ban most vitamins and minerals from being available in meaningful dosages? Is something as surreal as this really happening? Unfortunately the answer is yes, and it is very likely under the soon to be finalised EU regulations, and things are not looking good at all.
All this despite the fact that was not even one death caused by a dietary supplement in 2008, according to the most recent information collected by the U.S. National Poison Data System. The new 174-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published in the journal Clinical Toxicology, shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin.
(It is conservatively estimated that around 200,000 Americans and 40,000 Brits die every year from the use of correctly prescribed conventional medications).
Yet the EU do not seem to be interested in these facts.
Quite a few things already have been banned (for example we can no longer sell chromium in the picolinate form, or selenium except as selenium selenite), but things are set to get vastly worse, with useful dosages of most vitamins, minerals and amino acids being banned altogether in the immediate future unless action is taken now.
This time, if you care about this as much as we do. I absolutely beg you, that every single person reading this newsletter not to decide that you can't be bothered to do anything to support your basic human right to put what you want into your own body. If more people had made even a small amount of effort to protest, the EU Food Supplements Directive and the EU Herbal Medicines Directive (in other words, the protection of vested interests directvies) now beginning to really bite would never have been passed in the first place.
As the boss of the Finchley Clinic, I am fighting my hardest to save our vitamins and minerals and herbs even now at the 11th hour. (I will write a newsletter about the Herbal Medicines Directive, which is even more awful than the Food Supplements Directive before the end of the year). I have met my M. P., made financial contributions to the campaigning organisations, written letters and so on, but neither me, nor any combination of suppliers can or will succeed unless the general public decide to stand up and be counted.
Regrettably, my efforts and the efforts or others in the industry a few years back were a complete failure, partly because people simply did not believe this could ever happen. Unfortunately it could, and it did.
The rest of this email is not written by us, but copied and pasted from one of only two organisations in the UK supporting your right to take the health products you need, and if you care about this, you should act on it NOW. That is to say, deal with it today, as soon as you have finished reading it, not at some vague time in the future, which let's face it, means never.
Please read the material below and give it your most urgent attention
Mark G. Lester
Director - The Finchley Clinic Ltd
CHC (Consumers for Health Choice) is now on borrowed time; without CHC the future is bleak for consumers and for the Health Food industry. We need your help with our campaign too –
You know better than most that our work is vital; you also know that we run a very lean ship and have cut costs everywhere we can. But lobbying, briefings and campaigns are essential and cannot be run on fresh air. It would be a sad day if consumers lost their nutritional supplements – not by the severe financial crisis, but by an inadequate and unwelcome piece of EU legislation.
Please help us to help you, your friends and family, your customers, retailers and other companies across this industry.
1. As soon as you can, visit our website and download the draft letter; use it as a guide to send a message to the Commissioner. www.consumersforhealthchoice.com
Note from The Finchley Clinic: we urge you to re-write the letter in your own words. Tell the EU commissioner why you need your vitamins and minerals in their present dosages.
2. Can you join those already generous consumers by making a donation to keep the campaign going please? Any amount you can manage will help make a difference. Thank you. The on-line payment system is back in full working order again.
3. One final thing you can do – please forward this note to your own contacts, both in the UK and Europe, asking them to also take action as we have suggested. We are all in this together and together we can win!
(Another note from the Finchley Clinic: As a fourth point, write to your M.P. Better still go and meet him or her. I was amazed that I was offered an appointment with my M.P. within 2 minutes of my call, and within 3 days just by phoning the local party headquarters. A personal meeting with your M.P. telling them how strongly you feel about this issue, why you need to take robust dosages of vitamins and minerals rather than the mickey mouse dosages which certain vested interest groups would like to see, is probably worth at least a dozen letters. I really think that showing you feel so strongly about this, that you were prepared to make the effort to call your M.P.'s office and arrange a personal meeting says a lot. In my case I made it clear that my future voting intentions would be influenced by my M.P's willingness to resist EU interference in basic human rights, which is what this issue is really about. Oh, and I meant it - I was not calling his bluff).
[Update 2014, I really did mean it. I have now become a member of the UK Independence Party, as it was clear that my M.P. was not taking me seriously}
The officials in Brussels are now giving the details of the Directive much thought and attention – our concerns on behalf of consumers continue to be hammered home at every opportunity. While it may still be many more months before we have sight of the EU dose proposals we must always be prepared!
Thank you again so very much for anything you can give and for everything you are doing. This is so important for us all.
Very best wishes.
Director, Consumers for Health Choice.
Consumers for Health Choice
2 Oaklands Close, Chulmleigh,
Devon, EX18 7AU.
Consumers for Health Choice is a not-for-profit organisation campaigning in behalf of EU consumers. A private limited company incorporated 15th August 1996. Company No: 3238222
