New ANH Study Says EU Vitamin Laws Must Change Track

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A study just published in a leading peer reviewed journal explains
how the European Commission’s proposed approach to limiting maximum
doses of vitamins and minerals in food supplements across Europe is not
scientifically rational.

The study’s author Robert Verkerk PhD, executive and scientific
director of international campaign organisation, the Alliance for
Natural Health (ANH), ”
When you dig into the complexity of risk and
benefit relationships for nutrients as I have in this study, proceeding
with the kind of approaches the European Commission, the European Food
Safety Authority and industry have been discussing over the last six or
so years makes absolutely no scientific sense. The only rational way
forward involves moving from the risk-only approach that has been
considered up until now, to a risk-benefit approach. This means changing
tracks.” 

The study has been published in the journal,
Toxicology, the
official journal of the British Toxicology Society and the German
Toxicology Society. It is published in the same journal just two months
after an in-depth review of the scientific methods being considered by
European authorities, co-authored by Dr Verkerk, along with Dr Steve
Hickey of Staffordshire University, UK.

This latest study shows that the risk-based approaches under
consideration by European authorities, if turned into law as proposed,
will deny the majority of people from consuming beneficial quantities of
vitamins and minerals.

Dr Verkerk explains, ”
The problem is that the risks and benefits
for most nutrients actually overlap. If you exclude all risks in the
majority through statutory limitation as planned under the second phase
of the EU Food Supplements Directive, you literally prevent people from
accessing products containing levels that are good for them. You might
stave off deficiency diseases, but you would also prevent many people
from managing their health naturally. If we applied the same approach to
wheat, dairy or peanuts, governments would have to ban these foods.”