by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Recently an e-petition was circulated, which was then presented to the Prime Minister's offices, in which it was alleged that vitamins and herbal supplements/medicines were to be restricted or even banned in Britain.
Part of the petition read as follows: “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to oppose the adoption of the Codex Alimentarius (WHO/UN) proposals for restriction of the presently freely available herb/vitamin/mineral food supplements.”
And it continued: “The principle of self medication with herbal/vitamin/mineral food supplements would be restricted to ‘prescription only’ status, if the Codex Alimentarius is applied in this country. Since the NHS priorities are ill health diagnosis and treatment, the good health preservation that supplements provide will be inaccessible to the majority of our population and the cost to the NHS will increase, and the health of the population will decline.”
The Prime Minister and the Government responded as is outline below:
There are no current or planned Codex Alimentarius proposals that require the UK to change the controls on vitamin and mineral or botanical food supplements.
The Codex Alimentarius Commission was created in 1963 to develop food standards and guidelines. One of the main purposes of Codex’s work is to protect the health of consumers. Codex texts and guidelines are not enforceable in law and Codex member countries are not obliged to reflect their requirements in domestic legislation.
In the UK, food supplements are regulated under the European Food Supplements Directive 2002/46/EC which came into effect in the UK in 2003 and has applied since 2005. The Directive is implemented into national UK law by the Food Supplements Regulations (England) 2003. There are no plans to make vitamin and mineral or botanical food supplements available on prescription only.
Herbal remedies are subject to separate controls and are overseen by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Authority. Herbal remedies do not fall within the scope of Codex guidelines.
An outline of Codex, its activities and the UK’s involvement is available at: www.food.gov.uk/foodindustry/regulation/Codexbranch/.
This should, if we could but be 100 percent certain that we could believe our governments, lay fears of many to rest but we will be well advised to (1) read the information from the government and (2) keep a close eye on what is going on without, however, going over the top and believing every rumor as well.
© 2010
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