Conservative MEP Emma McClarkin has backed consumer calls for European officials to halt plans to impose restrictive maximum levels on vitamins and minerals.
Leading natural health group Consumers for Health Choice says that imposing low maximum levels would effectively ban the safe, widely available higher-strength VMS products that millions of British consumers rely on.
McClarkin wrote to EU Health Commissioner Tonio Borg after meeting with CHC. Following the meeting she urged Commissioner Borg to protect consumer choice and ensure that European Commission proposals to impose maximum levels on safe and well-established supplements under the Food Supplements Directive were finally halted.
She also warned that bringing forward proposals to ban safe, higher-potency supplements will see consumers turn to less-regulated sources of supply, such as the internet, and so raise safety concerns.
McClarkin said: “As a consumer of supplements myself, I fully support the Consumers for Health Choice campaign to maintain consumer access to safe higher-potency vitamins and mineral supplements. I will work to ensure that European officials are aware of the strength of feeling – in the UK and elsewhere in Europe – against imposing arbitrary limits on these supplements and the damaging impact that such limits will have on consumer choice and consumer safety.”
Michael Peet, Chair of Consumers for Health Choice said: “I am absolutely delighted that Emma McClarkin has taken this prompt action to protect consumer choice and consumer safety. Consumer choice must not be sacrificed yet again on the altar of harmonisation. It is time that EU officials respond to concerns being raised on our behalf by MEPs like Emma and shelf these plans for good.”
