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Food supplements have shown to be extremely safe. Yet there are international efforts in progress to limit nutrient dosages and types of ingredients, both at the European level (Council of Europe, European Commission, European Parliament) and world wide, through Codex Alimentarius.
The reason for these legislative efforts is trade, more precisely the facilitation of international trade.
Pharmaceutical lobbies are working hard to limit the scope and effectiveness of food supplements, presumably because healthy people do not buy their medicines as readily as sick people. Government nutritionists are not of much help. They do not generally recognize the vast preventive potentional of supplements supplying high doses of selected nutrients and natural co-fractors.
The needs of consumers and of alternative health practitioners are not taken into account in the legislative talks.
We have therefore drafted a petition which we are asking you to sign, demanding that legislators take into account freedom of choice of the consumer.
Who are we? La Leva is an association of consumers concerned with freedom of choice.
Why is consumer action so important? Please read this article for some background information.
What are the statistics on supplement safety? Read the article by Ron Law comparing the safety of food supplements and pharmaceutical medicines on the basis of actual death statistics.
What are we asking for and why? Read the full text of the petition.
We the undersigned, users of natural health products and food supplements, ask legislators and administrators in all European countries and delegates to Codex Alimentarius discussions world wide to take into account the following:
Considering that international legislation on the subject of food supplements is currently under discussion at both Codex Alimentarius and in the European legislative system (Council of Europe and the European Parliament);
considering further that in both venues of discussion there are heavy pressures brought to bear by pharmaceutical interests, to limit the effectiveness and the availability of natural health products and food supplements to the detriment of consumer choice and public health;
considering that approved, regulated and properly prescribed pharmaceutical medicines are causing hundreds of thousands of preventable deaths each year, having become the fourth most common cause of death in several countries (see statistics and article by Ron Law from New Zealand);
considering that vitamin supplements and other natural health products have a clean bill of health, having been used for decades by millions of consumers world wide without more than a handful of confirmed lethal outcomes;
considering that the clearly visible pressures of pharmaceutical interests to limit the effectiveness and availability of natural health products are dictated by motives of monetary profit and and considerations of market share, not by concern for the health of consumers;
considering that true health preservation today is achieved through the widespread use of natural health products and supplements (see recent prevention references in Ron Law's article) and considering that consumers should not be deprived of the health preserving and health promoting means of their choice merely by reason of the distraction of legislators or the greed for profits of the mentioned pharmaceutical interests, let it be said then that the consumers of natural health products and food supplements, both in Europe and internationally, demand that legislators and administrators, in discussions concerning food supplements, take into account the following:
1.Natural health products and food supplements, in the absence of specific regulations in place internationally, have shown to possess an unsurpassed safety record and to be of great benefit to health as evidenced by scientific studies and by the personal experience of the undersigned users.
2.It does not therefore make any sense to limit the dosages of essential nutrients in supplements except where consumption of such substances has shown actual, health risks;
3.It does not therefore make any sense to limit the availability of nutrients or other ingredient substances by socalled "positive lists" as contemplated in current international legislative proposals;
4.It would seriously undermine programs for the promotion of public health and the prevention of illness as well as the practice of non conventional methods of therapy, to put limits on the availability of these products, even if ostensibly "in the name of consumer protection" for these reasons, we demand that:
ANY EUROPEAN OR INTERNATIONAL LEGISLATION BE CAREFULLY STRUCTURED SO AS TO GUARANTEE THE FREE ACCESS TO NATURAL HEALTH PRODUCTS AND FOOD SUPPLEMENTS THAT HAVE PROVEN TO BE SAFE AND ARE IN DEMAND BY CONSUMERS, OR BE INDEFINITELY SHELVED.
ANY SUCH LEGISLATION SHALL NOT CONTAIN PROVISIONS LIMITING THE DOSAGES OF NUTRIENTS OR ACTIVE SUBSTANCES IN SUCH PRODUCTS EXCEPT WHERE ABSOLUTELY AND CLEARLY NECESSARY TO AVERT PROVEN, NOT FICTITIOUS OR ASSUMED DANGERS TO THE HEALTH OF CONSUMERS
ANY SUCH LEGISLATION SHALL NOT LIMIT THE SCOPE AND VARIETY OF NUTRITIVE AND OTHERWISE HEALTH PROMOTING SUBSTANCES BY THE USE OF ANY KIND OF LISTS, POSITIVE OR NEGATIVE, EXCEPT WHERE SUCH SUBSTANCES CAN BE SHOWN TO HAVE CAUSED DAMAGES SIMILAR TO THOSE EVIDENT TODAY IN THE PROPERLY APPROVED AND REGULATED PHARMACEUTICALLY PRODUCED MEDICINES
In support of these principles and requesting that legislators and administrators take into account these demands, we hereby sign: