British Dietetic Association

BBC Ya’ Later!

With friends like the British Dietetic Association (BDA), who needs enemies?

That was my first thought when I read the comments made by a BDA spokesperson in reaction to the recent news about the European Union (EU) directive on dietary supplements. In a nutshell: A surprise European court ruling found the directive to be valid. As a result, next month’s scheduled implementation of the directive will go ahead on schedule. And I’ll tell you the good news/bad news about that in a moment.

But first, let’s go to the BBC

Making it up as we go along

A BBC report on last week’s court decision noted that when the EU directive goes into effect the proposals “will ban around 200 supplements from sale and put restrictions on the upper limits of vitamin doses.”

These supplements have been on sale for decades without causing widespread harmbut never mind. Regulation fever is running high in Europe. And that’s just peachy with the British Dietetic Association.

BDA spokesperson Ursula Arens told the BBC that the changes wouldn’t greatly inconvenience consumers. She said, “About 99 percent of products will not be affected.”

With all due respect to Ms. Arens, she’s simply making that number up. She has no way of accurately predicting how may products will be affected because the EU has not yet set the maximum permitted dosage levels. When these levels are proposed sometime next year, there’s a very good chance that far more than one percent of all supplements will be affected.

A couple of howlers

Meanwhile, the BDA is all for regulating dosage levels. Why? According to the BBC, the organization is “concerned about patients admitted to hospital suffering liver failure and severe stomach problems after taking high doses of vitamins.”

Oh PLEASE! I would LOVE to see the official UK statistics on the number of patients who have suffered liver failure and severe stomach problems from high vitamin doses. I’m willing to bet my house, my car and my dogs that we’d be looking at one or two patients per year – if that! You want genuine risk of liver failure? Try over-the-counter acetaminophen, which is responsible for about 100 deaths per year (according to the FDA). Severe stomach problems? Just down a few nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

And here’s another howler the BBC attributes to the BDA: “In some cases the supplements are preventing people getting the correct treatment for other chronic illness.”

What!? Someone please tell me how in the world supplements “prevent” consumers from getting correct treatment. And is Ms. Arens actually suggesting that the regulation of just one percent of all supplements will correct this terrible wrong?

And what exactly is “correct treatment”? That wouldn’t by any chance be code for “prescription drugs” would it?

It wasn’t broken

Ms. Arens’ comments on the EU directive are contradicted by a statement from the Health Food Manufacturers Association (HFMA) and the National Association of Health food Stores (NAHS). These organizations have brought a joint suit against the EU Commission, stating that the directive may threaten as many as 5,000 supplement products now on the market.

Time will tell whose prediction is correct, the BDA’s or the HFMA/NAHS’s. One thing is certain, however: We WON’T know next month when the directive goes into effect. Just like any true regulatory bureaucracy, “going into effect” doesn’t actually mean “going into effect.” Supplement makers will have until December 2009 to conform to the directive. And of course the stipulations of dosage upper limits won’t be confirmed for months or even years to come.

As harsh as these restrictions may eventually turn out to be for UK consumers, there is a little bit of good news here. Italy, Spain, Poland and other EU countries currently have extremely strict supplement regulations that will be eased considerably when the directive eventually takes effect. So it appears that some may win but some will definitely lose when the EU bureaucrats finally succeed in “harmonizing” regulations

Sources:
“Vitamin Controls Backed by Europe” BBC News, 7/12/05, news.bbc.co.uk
“Supplement Directive is Valid, Surprise Court Decision” Dominique Patton, NutraIngredients.com, 7/12/05, nutraingredients.com
“Balancing Unsaturated Fatty Acids: What’s the Evidence for cholesterol Lowering?” Journal of the American Dietetic Association, Vol. 105, No. 7, July 2005, adajournal.org