To: IAHF LIST
Subject: Germany Defies EU/Blocks Shipment of Vitamin Products From Other EU Countries Commentary on the Very Dangerous EU Vitamin Directive Which Must Be Opposed
From: "International Advocates for Health Freedom" jham@iahf.com
Date: Tue, 10 Oct 2000 19:14:10 -0400
IAHF List: In an effort to learn more about the regulation of vitamins in the EU, I just found the article (below my comments) which illustrates how hard it is for German vitamin consumers to get the vitamins they want from other EU countries because they get seized at German customs. The thing to keep in mind beyond just Germany's gross intransigence is that the EU Directive on Vitamins currently on the table (see http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/health_consumer/library/press/press51_en.html threatens to destroy what little health freedom remains in Europe, wiping out consumer access to high potency vitamins in England, Holland, and Sweden, forcing those countries to be as restrictive as Germany and France are now. The longer range threat posed by these EU developments is the spector of the possibility of the complete destruction of health freedom world wide via CODEX in 2002, if all 15 EU countries plus the EU itself, thats 16, push as a block for highly restrictive regulations. This is the direction the Pharma Cartel is clearly trying to push things in, and consumers in Europe must come alive and complain to their EU reps and MPs.
IAHF will be sending a video documentary to the EU this week to assist them in their battle. It helped us pass DSHEA here in the USA in '94. Its called "Let Truth Be the Bias" We must make an updated version to discuss the situation in the EU and at Codex, and welcome your donations. We will be selling copies of the video as well soon to raise money for an updated version. Health Freedom is under unprecedented attack world wide, and at IAHF we're doing everything humanly possible to reach out to consumers from several countries and to forge closer alliances between diverse health freedom groups.
Upon reading this its not hard to see just how mindlessly restrictive consumer access to vitamins is in Germany, and there is a huge danger of the German regulatory system being imposed globally. Along with joining IAHF http://www.iahf.com consumers should also join the UK health freedom group Society For the Promotion of Nutritional Therapy (SPNT) at http://freespace.virgin.net/nutrition.therapy/home.htm to assist in the European Battle for Health Freedom upon which so much is riding globally. Expect DSHEA to come under unprecedented heavy attack in the coming year-the Cartel is out for blood and we must be ready to do major battle in the USA.
Please send a donation to IAHF to assist in our efforts to bring this information to more people and to carry out this work world wide. IAHF PO Box 625 Floyd VA 24091 USA Thank You. Anyone can join the IAHF list at http://www.iahf.com Please forward this mssg to others.
http://europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/goods/infr/469.htm
The Commission has decided to refer Germany to the Court on the question of barriers to the sale of vitamin-enriched food supplements imported from other Member States. Because of the levels of vitamins in these products, the German authorities classify some of them as medicinal products. The effect of this classification is that they are subject to a long and costly authorisation procedure. However, the Commission considers that the systematic application of a purely quantitative criterion (three times the recommended daily intake) to classify a vitamin supplement as a medicinal product disregards the differences between the various types of vitamins and the different levels of risk involved in the event of excessive consumption. A less restrictive measure would be to specify a limit value for each vitamin, above which a preparation would be regarded as a medicinal product. The German authorities have so far refused to remove this obstacle.
Germany - authorisation delays for food supplements
In Germany, food legally produced and/or marketed in another Member State which does not correspond to the provisions of German food law are subject to an authorisation procedure. This procedure, used for the German authorities to check that there is no danger to public health, lasts on average from six to nine months in the case of food supplements.
The Commission considers that the length of this procedure constitutes an unjustified barrier to entering the German market, notably in the light of the case law of the Court of Justice in its 1987 ruling on a case concerning Germany's beer purity laws (C-178/84). The Court ruling on this case emphasised that any authorisation procedure should be completed within a reasonable period. In its interpretative Communication on free movement of foodstuffs of October 1989, the Commission specified that it considered that authorisation procedures for foodstuffs should not exceed 90 days. The German Government has argued that the delays are the result of the complexity of the process to decide whether a food supplement should be classified as a foodstuff or as a medicine, the workload of the competent authorities and the extremely high number of requests.
However, the Commission considers that possible administrative difficulties experienced by a Member State cannot justify a trade barrier. In its reasoned opinion, the Commission states that it considers that delays for processing requests for authorisation for food supplements well in excess of 90 days constitute an infringement of EC Treaty rules on the free movement of goods.