Health campaign group Alliance for Health International (ANH-Intl) has launched a health claims “veto campaign”.
Last Friday, a short list of just 220 health claims was passed to the European Parliament for its scrutiny. If MEPs vote to give approval of the list only these 220 health claims will able to be used to indicate the beneficial value of commercial food and health food products – including supplements — across all 27 EU member states. Around 2,500 health claims that were controversially rejected by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), will be banned within 6 months.
Calling on MEPs, ANH-Intl’s executive and scientific director, Robert Verkerk PhD, said: “MEPs, like European citizens, rightly want to ensure that misleading information is removed from the marketplace. But the inappropriate standards of proof of benefit required by European authorities mean that thousands of health claims, including such obvious examples as the effects of eating prunes on digestive health, have been thrown out. Also, evaluation of health claims for some groups of nutrients, such as botanicals and probiotics, has yet to be completed, so it would be premature to turn the proposed shortlist of 220 into EU law.”
In addition to releasing a campaign pack for MEPs, ANH-Intl is also urging citizens across the EU to urge their MEPs to vote against the list at the end of a three-month European Parliamentary scrutiny period.
