Supplement Regulations

The nuts and bolts of the legislation are that: 

• The definition of what constitutes a medicinal product is so broad that it classifies all food products, herbs, nutrients and even water as being 'drugs'.
• However, it may be possible to sell some herbs classifiable as foods, such as cayenne pepper, under food law. 
• Whilst the original, 1965 Directive had exclusions for food, toiletries and cosmetics these have now been transferred to the preamble section where they are not legally binding and the default setting is to regard any substance as a medicine if there is any doubt. 
• Practitioners and lecturers also need to be extremely mindful of any claims that they make and this may effectively mean that centuries of wisdom are lost in a relatively short period of time.
• The Directive introduces a complete ban on all non-European herbal medicines such as Traditional Chinese, Ayurvedic and Amazonian medicines unless they can demonstrate 15 years of use within the EU.  
• Particular combinations of herbal products may be banned, preventing the creation of any new or innovative herbal combinations that might be supported by the emerging science.
• Manufacturers must meet pharmaceutical standards for purity and stability. Many multi-herbal products will not be able to meet these criteria due to the complexity of the mixtures.
• Traditional medicines are eligible for registration only if they are intended for minor ailments. 
• The cost of complying with the data requirements, assembling the dossiers of bibliographic and expert evidence, as well as commissioning genotoxicity data is estimated to be upwards of £80,000 per herb and will prove prohibitive for most small to medium sized manufacturers.
• Herbal products containing significant levels of vitamins and minerals will be prohibited and permitted only if the action of those nutrients is considered ‘ancillary’ to that of the herbal ingredients.
• Herbal products containing non-herbal ingredients other than vitamins and minerals will be disallowed.
• The costs of administrating a whole new raft of beaurocracy will have to be passed on to the consumer and this will mean less choice and make using supplements uneconomic for some. 

 

 

Also, because the media in general is in the pocket of their paymasters - Big Pharma - media coverage can be very biased. Consider the following:

• The US actor, Heath Ledger, was determined to have died aged 28 from a cocktail of prescription medications he had been taking including painkillers, anti-anxiety drugs and sleeping pills. There were no calls for these drugs to be withdrawn or for warnings to be issued, but can you imagine the rumpus if bottles of herbs or vitamins had been found next to his bed? 
• When a UK toddler, Lana Ameen, recently died of swine flu, there was saturation media coverage of the grieving mother appealing to all other mothers to get their children vaccinated and to the government to fund universal swine flu vaccinations.
• In the UK in 2009 a 14 year old girl, Natalie Morton, died hours after being given a prophylactic cervical cancer vaccine. Whilst the story was covered that night, her death was dismissed the following day as having been due to 'underlying health problems' and the story disappeared from the media. After a brief temporary suspension the vaccination programme rolled on.

 

Costs of healthcare

Whilst allopathic medicine takes the high moral ground, there is no evidence that more medicine makes us healthier. In a recent World Health Organisation study, the United States (which spends the most per capita on healthcare) was rated 15th among 25 industrialised countries.

Plus, if doctors had the answers they would all be glowing beacons of health who live longer than the rest of us, but this plainly is not the case and life expectancy is actually decreased among members of the medical profession. 

Finally, the diagram below illustrates statistics compiled by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which show that life expectancy is just over 2 years longer in the USA (which is the country with the highest per capita health spend) that that in Mexico (with the lowest per capita healthcare costs) and that this extra two years comes with a price tag 9 times greater.

 

The Japanese manage to life 6 years longer than the average American at one third of the health cost and people in the Czech Republic live only one year less on average at one-fifth of the health costs. The United Kingdom has an average life expectancy and healthcare costs.  

Obviously more medicine is not the answer. Not only does it not help, it harms and kills literally millions each year whereas the aim of herbal medicines is to support the innate restorative powers of the body. 

It's a completely different mindset, but we are firmly in the hands of the beaurocrats and Big Pharma now. 

 

• The definition of what constitutes a medicinal product is so broad that it classifies all food products, herbs and nutrients and even water as being drugs.
• Whilst the original, 1965 Directive had exclusions for food, toiletries and cosmetics these have now been transferred to the preamble section where they are not legally binding and the default setting is to regard any substance as a medicine if there is any doubt. 
• Practitioners and lecturers also need to be extremely mindful of any claims that they make and this may effectively mean that centuries of wisdom are lost in a relatively short period of time.
• The Directive introduces a complate ban on all non-European herbal medicines such as Traditional Chinese, Ayurvedic and Amazonian medicines unless they can demonstrate 15 years of use within the EU.  
• Particular combinations of herbal products may be banned, peventing the creation of any new or innovative herbal combinations that might be supported by the emerging science.
• Manufacturers must meet pharmaceutical standards for purity and stability. Many multi-herbal products will not be able to meet these criteria due to the complexity of the mixtures.
• Traditional medicines are eligible for registration only if they are intended for minor ailments. 
• The cost of complying with the data requirements, assembling of dossiers of bibliographic and expert evidence, as well as commissionsing genotoxicity data is estimated to be upwards of £80,000 per herb and will prove prohibitive for most small to medium sized manufacturers.
• Herbal Products containing significant levels of vitamins and minerals will be prohibited and permitted only if the action of those nutrients is considered ‘ancillary’ to that of the herbal ingredients.
• Herbal products containing non-herbal ingredients other than vitamins and minerals are currently disallowed.
• The costs of administrating a whole new raft of beaurocacy have to be passed on to the consumer and this will mean a less choice and make using supplements uneconomic for some. 
• It may be possible to sell some herbs classifiable as foods, such as cayenne pepper, under food law.