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They've done it again! The
European Commission, that is - the unelected body that
increasingly controls every facet of the lives of the
nearly 500 million-strong population of Europe.
Long-time ANH supporters
may remember the
'black box' that Advocate-General Geelhoed complained
about during the ANH's legal challenge of the EU's Food
Supplements Directive back in 2005. It appears that the
famous black box is now being wielded again as a tool to
try to ditch potentially thousands of health claims
submissions made to the European Commission last year.
The latest revelations,
revealed in a
detailed letter issued today by the ANH to the UK
government's authority on food, the Food Standards Agency,
shows how the Commission has again moved the goalposts. It
flies in the face of noises being made recently by the
European Commission President and Vice-President about
transparency and consumer empowerment.
Read on for the
detail.
ANH Press Release
For Immediate Release: 7 April 2008
EUROPEAN COMMISSION MOVES GOALPOSTS
ON HEALTH CLAIMS
European-based consumer and natural health industry group,
the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), claims today that
the European Commission has moved the ‘goalposts’ on the
procedure that aims to standardise allowed generic health
claims on foods in the European Union by 2010. In
addition, the ANH claims that the Commission has not met
its obligations with regard to sound administration in
providing adequate guidance to interested parties making
applications for health claims, which are to be evaluated
by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) over the next
two years.
These grave concerns come less than three years after the
European Commission was heavily criticised firstly by
Advocate-General Geelhoed and then by the European Court
of Justice (ECJ) itself in the ANH’s case on food
supplements in Europe’s highest court. The
Advocate-General and the ECJ complained about a lack of
adequate transparency or guidance over the procedure
required to admit sources of vitamins and minerals to the
positive list of the Food Supplements Directive in 2005.
The EU Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation, which came
into effect Europe wide on 1 July 2007, but is still in a
transition phase, aims to ensure consumers are protected
from unsubstantiated claims made on food or food
supplement packaging or even verbally, while being given
sufficient information to allow informed choice. It also
harmonises the varying approaches presently allowed by
national authorities so offering, it is claimed,
conditions of fairer competition for companies trading in
Europe’s nearly 30 Member States.
On 27th March 2008, the UK national authority, the Food
Standards Agency (FSA), held an urgent conference with
interested parties, including the ANH, to inform them of
new information received by the European Commission on its
proposed approach to handling the several thousands of
health claims submitted by applicants across Europe. At
this meeting, the FSA informed stakeholders that the
European Commission would reject any health claims, before
forwarding them to EFSA for evaluation, that did not rely
on human studies as primary substantiating evidence.
Dr Robert Verkerk, Executive & Scientific Director of the
ANH, said, “Guidance from the Commission on how to
complete applications for Article 13 health claims was
very limited and non-transparent. Now the applications are
in, suddenly the Commission seems to have found a way of
culling huge numbers of claims. It’s very much another
case of Geelhoed’s black box. Moving the goalposts is not
acceptable if it’s being done primarily as a means of
making the European institutions’ job more manageable”.
The ANH has today submitted to the FSA, at the FSA’s
request, detailed comments on a wide range of problems
emanating from the Commission’s newly indicated approach.
It includes the fact that the Commission seems to wish to
exclude evidence from authoritative bodies such as the
World Health Organization.
Meleni Aldridge, Development Manager for the ANH,
commented, “This Regulation is meant to help
consumers, not make life for them more confusing”.
The Commission’s approach appears to fly in the face of
recent statements made by President José Manuel Barroso
and Commissioner for Consumer Protection, Meglena Kuneva,
where, in a joint article penned less than a month ago for
European Consumer Day, President Barroso supported Mrs
Kuneva’s plea for empowered consumers. This was swiftly
followed by European Commission Vice-President, Margot
Wallström’s statement that the Commission was “listening
better, explaining better and going local”.
Ms Aldridge added: “consumers now need to voice their
concerns as the Commission’s lack of transparency cannot
foster empowerment”.
The ANH has asked the FSA to establish under what legal
basis the Commission has been able to now reject health
claims applications based on evidence from representative
animal or in vitro models. Importantly, it may not be
ethically acceptable to carry out certain types of study
on humans and, ironically, animal studies have,
historically, been pivotal to the elucidation of health
relationships associated with licensed drugs.
ENDS.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION
Meleni Aldridge
Development Manager
Alliance for Natural Health
The Atrium, Curtis Road,
Dorking, Surrey RH4 1XA
United Kingdom
Tel: +44 (0)1306 646 551
Mobile: +44 (0)7771 750 230
Email:
info@anhcampaign.org
EDITOR’S
NOTES
1. The Alliance for Natural Health –
www.anhcampaign.org
The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) is a UK-based,
international, non-governmental organisation, founded in
2002, which is working on behalf of consumers, medical
doctors, complementary health practitioners and
health-product suppliers worldwide, to protect and promote
natural healthcare, using the principles of good science
and good law.
The ANH’s chief objective
is to help develop an appropriate legal-scientific
framework and environment for the development of
sustainable approaches to healthcare, while also helping
to promote natural health. Within this setting, consumers
and health professionals should be able to make informed
choices about a wide range of health options, and in
particular those that relate to diet, lifestyle and
non-drug-based or natural therapies, so that they may
experience their benefits to the full while not exposing
themselves to unnecessary risks.
The ANH letter (dated 4
April 2008) to the FSA highlighting concerns over the
European Commission’s proposed approach can be downloaded
from:
http://www.alliance-natural-health.org/_docs/ANHwebsiteDoc_299.pdf
2. European Commission nutrition and health claims portal
-
http://europa.eu/scadplus/leg/en/lvb/l21095.htm
3. UK Food Standards Agency health claims portal -
http://www.food.gov.uk/foodlabelling/ull/claims/
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