Supplements directive comes under attack

A British consumer organisation, Consumers for Health Choice, has attacked the EU decision to regulate the vitamins and dietary supplements industry by imposing strict controls on each supplement.

In a letter to the Daily Telegraph newspaper, the organisation's Sue Croft wrote that the food supplements directive, passed by the European parliament in March this year, "will affect millions"​.

She viewed the directive as "the removal from sale of hundreds of vitamins and herbal products, and the dilution of others to levels many will see as meaningless."​

Croft noted that the directive will pass into British law"in the next few weeks or months"​ but added that the ambiguity would have a negative impact.

"We will not know which nutrients will be allowed, or what dose levels will be permitted, for perhaps another two years. Consumers are going to lose a huge number of safe and popular products that have been on the British market for decades."​

She also accused Britain's Medicine Controls Agency (MCA) of pushing the proposed traditional herbal medicinal products directive (THMPD) through "at breakneck speed, and with as little consultation as they can get away with."​

Croft said that the THMPD was deeply flawed and failed to meet the government's stated objectives. She called for consumers to act on the moves and to make themselves heard.