Notes for editors:

ALLIANCE FOR NATURAL HEALTH

  1. The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) is a Europe-wide non-profit alliance of consumers, doctors, complementary health practitioners, and innovative industry manufacturers and suppliers who have an interest in food supplements and natural health. More information, including details of the ANH’s support base, will be found at
  2. Good science and good law underpin all of the ANH’s work, and the scientific reports produced by the ANH are endorsed by many of the world’s leading doctors and scientists working in the field of nutrition.

HAN FOUNDATION

  1. The HAN Foundation (stichting Heidelberg Appeal Nederland) was established in the Netherlands in 1993 and named after the Heidelberg Appeal, a declaration signed in 1992 by over 3500 scientists. HAN is an independent non-profit making alliance of scientists and science supporters whose aim is to ensure that scientific debates are properly aired, and that decisions which are taken and action that is proposed are founded on sound scientific principles. Members are accepted from all walks of life and all branches of science. HAN has at present over 800 donors, including almost 200 professors. Further information:

EU FOOD SUPPLEMENTS DIRECTIVE

  1. If the proposed ban on vitamins and minerals is implemented on 1 August 2005 across Europe, there is much at stake:
  2. Over 5000 products will disappear from the shelves of UK health stores as a result of the ban removing access to over 300 vitamin and mineral ingredients (out of a total of about 420). These include, amongst others, the main natural forms of Vitamin E, several forms of vitamin C, the key natural form of folic acid, MSM and a range of minerals such as vanadium, silicon and boron, all being products which millions of consumers choose to take as part of their regular health regime and have done so without any ill effects for many years.
  3. An individual’s freedom of choice to take safe natural health products will be removed; 40-45% of the UK, Irish and Swedish populations take vitamins and minerals.
  4. Products are to be banned with absolutely no scientific justification. Many of the world’s leading scientific and medical experts in nutrition support the absence of any proper basis for the proposed bans.
  • Although the proposed bans related only to vitamins and minerals, unless overturned, the ‘Positive list’ system will most likely be transferred to other nutrients used in food supplements, such as plant extracts, amino acids and enzymes. The precedent set by an ANH victory will drastically reduce the chance of future bans on these other nutrient forms.
  • Further regulatory proposals by the EU and Codex Alimentarius are due to be considered by later this and next year. These include restrictions on maximum dosages of vitamins and minerals and restrictions on health claims of foods and food supplements. Again, the ANH is working to help positively shape such legislation using its mantra of ‘good science and good law’.

CODEX GUIDELINES ON VITAMIN AND MINERAL FOOD SUPPLEMENTS

  1. The Codex Alimentarius Commission develops international guidelines for a very wide range of food products. These guidelines are used by governments with the intention of harmonising rules on food products to assist international trade as well as ensuring consumer safety.
  2. The Codex Guidelines on Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements have been in development for approximately 10 years. It is one of a large number of Guidelines pertaining to food products that has been developed under the auspices of the Codex Alimentarius Commission (established in 1963), which is a subsidiary body of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Food & Agricultural Organization (FAO) of the United Nations. Codex Guidelines are frequently implemented into laws of Codex member countries (172 in total), and they are used as reference points in any trade disputes brought to the World Trade Organization.
  3. The text for the Guidelines was agreed by consensus in the Codex Committee for Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) in Bonn in November 2004, and the Guidelines are due to be ratified at the next CCNFSDU meeting in Rome on 4-9 July 2005.
  4. The key area of the Guidelines which has yet to be agreed is the nature of the ‘nutrient appropriate’ scientific risk assessment, which will be used to establish Upper Safe Levels for the vitamins and minerals. The process of determining this science has effectively, although unofficially, been handed to the FAO/WHO, who, in turn, have allowed an open consultation phase for input from external parties. The Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) was one of 16 organisations to submit comments for this consultation in December 2004, and the ANH submission revealed, with extensive reference to peer-reviewed science, very substantial flaws in the various existing models that have been used by US and European authorities. These models are assumed to form the basis of the risk assessment science to be employed in establishing upper levels. The ANH’s submission has subsequently been endorsed by over 100 leading clinical nutritionists in the US and Europe.

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