Huge Supplements Ban Coming To Europe

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Huge Supplements Ban Coming To Europe

BLOWING THE WHISTLE ON THE COVER-UP

http://www.thehealthcrusader.com/pgs/article-0104-ban.shtml

 

An Interview with John Hammell of International

Advocates For Health Freedom (IAHF)

by Greg Ciola

 

Crusador Newsletter DEC-JAN 2004, (ISSUE 16)

 

In August 2005, everything in Europe is about to change. Over 300

bioavailable nutrient forms present in over 5,000 safe vitamin and

mineral products that include a large number of the safest, most

readily absorbed and most effective, food-derived forms will be

banned from the market. It stems from radical legislation passed in

Europe by member State governments in June 2002 known as the EU Food

Supplements Directive (FSD). The list of banned items includes

natural vitamin forms such as mixed tocopherols (natural vitamin E),

carotenoids and methylcobalamin, all forms of sulphur, boron,

vanadium, silicon and most trace elements, the most readily absorbed

and safest forms of calcium, magnesium, zinc, selenium, chromium and

molybdenum. It will severely limit the doses of vitamins and other

nutrients allowed in products, removing all high-dose products from

the market. It will include future restrictions on nutrient forms

other than vitamins and minerals such as fatty acids, amino acids,

enzymes, probiotics, phytonutrients, etc. It will dramatically limit

future innovation in the dietary supplement industry, with consequent

serious impacts on retail outlets, complementary practitioners and

consumers who choose to take responsibility for their own health.

 

In addition to denying most Europeans access to safe nutritional

supplements, this draconian EU Directive is going to be used as the

blueprint for establishing international dietary supplement laws at

Codex of which the U.S. has agreed to adopt. If this happens, which

is a very likely scenario in the next year or so, Codex will outlaw

or severely restrict virtually everything millions of us have grown

accustomed to using safely every day. We no longer live in a world

where national borders mean much of anything. We are witnessing the

rapid unification of the world into a new global government with

Europe at the helm. When the World Trade Organization (WTO) was given

teeth to enforce international trade laws in the early 1990s by

establishing an international court known as the Dispute Settlement

Body, all WTO member nations in principle agreed to harmonize their

domestic trade laws to a new set of international laws so every

nation operates by the same set of standards. Most supplement

consumers were unaware at the time that in effect, this would

eventually lead to an incremental attack on all of our food

supplements here in America and around the world. Most supplement

companies have simply gone along with the advice from their

pharmaceutically dominated trade associations and know very little,

if any, about what is taking shape across the Atlantic.

 

The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), a consumer advocacy group

based in Britain, was recently granted the green light to challenge

the FSD at the last minute; however, very rarely has a EU Directive

ever been overturned and in this case, it would be a historic event

considering the pharmaceutical interests backing its implementation.

Resources are very scarce and desperately needed to keep the lawsuit

going to overturn the Directive before it's too late. They've hired a

top staff of EU lawyers and together with its multidisciplinary team

of experts they are prepared for a legal challenge in a EU Court.

With the EU expanding by ten more nations in early 2004 to a combined

total of twenty-five member nations, and with heavy pressure to

finalize a Codex vitamin standard, we're at a critical juncture on

this issue. If the FSD is not overturned, and with Europe's ever-

expanding power, it's very possible that there will be enough

countries onboard to overrule the U.S. at Codex where many parts of

the FSD will be used when international vitamin laws are codified.

Once a Codex vitamin law is finalized, it will supercede all U.S.

supplement laws. The only way for America to truly protect its vital

interest is to get out of the U.N. and the WTO entirely, which is

something nobody realistically sees happening. If America is not

vigilant to this threat, our supplement industry will be blindsided

and knocked out without even putting up a valiant fight.

 

In an effort to educate supplement consumers around the world to this

dangerous threat to our health freedoms, CRUSADOR interviewed John

Hammell of IAHF in a no holds barred discussion. Hammell has been

sounding the alarm since 1996 that serious trouble is brewing for our

industry. Unfortunately, John's pleas for help have mostly fallen on

deaf ears as these international agreements continue to plod forward

virtually unopposed and with complicity from high level U.S.

delegates with pharmaceutical ties representing us at Codex. The time

to muster the troops and kill this Directive and block a very

restrictive Codex vitamin standard is now. Otherwise, it will be too

late and America's supplement laws will be harmonized to a new set of

draconian international vitamin laws.