The World Institute of Natural Health Sciences (WINHS) is working with allied groups, scientists and professionals to enhance and protect your freedom of choice in nutrition and health care.
WINHS is working to ensure that alternative and natural healthcare is maintained and further developed for the health and well being of future generations.
The Situation:
European Union legislation, backed by well funded vested interests, is set to ban many of the food supplements we normally take for granted. Worse yet, the United Nations, through their Codex Alimentarius Commission, is seeking to adopt this restrictive European legislation and apply it world wide in the name of "trade harmonization" and the World Trade Organization will act as the enforcement branch for all UN member nations.
Your patient's and your own freedom of choice and access to natural health remedies such as food supplements and herbs is at very real risk.
This will continue to adversely affect the Natural Health Industry as a whole including vitamin and herbal remedy manufacturers, distributors and resellers, health food stores, nutritionalists and natural health practitioners and most importantly, the consumers they serve - YOU.
Many vitamins and mineral forms will be eliminated completely.
Maximum permitted dosages will be drastically reduced to RDA or "placebo" therapeutic levels.
Herbal ingredients will also be severely restricted
The Situation:
European Union legislation, backed by well funded vested interests, is set to ban many of the food supplements we normally take for granted. Worse yet, the United Nations, through their Codex Alimentarius Commission, is seeking to adopt this restrictive European legislation and apply it world wide in the name of "trade harmonization" and the World Trade Organization will act as the enforcement branch for all UN member nations.
Your patient's and your own freedom of choice and access to natural health remedies such as food supplements and herbs is at very real risk.
This will continue to adversely affect the Natural Health Industry as a whole including vitamin and herbal remedy manufacturers, distributors and resellers, health food stores, nutritionalists and natural health practitioners and most importantly, the consumers they serve.
Many vitamins and mineral forms will be eliminated completely.
Maximum permitted dosages will be drastically reduced to "placebo" therapeutic levels. Herbal ingredients will also be severely restricted.
Practitioners involved in nutrition and herbal medicine all over Europe and the United States are becoming aware of the huge range of practitioner-only vitamin and mineral products that will be affected by the EU Food Supplements Directive, the Traditional Herbal Products Directive, the Nutrition & Health Claims Regulation and Codex Alimentarius Guidelines.
The Institute is involved in several campaigns (media, legal and investigative campaigns and programs) in order to prevent loss of:
The bottom line is that the totality of EU and global regulation of natural products will affect the availability of:
In Europe, it might be another 10 years before the EU rolls out the full 'natural health products game plan.' This is why it is so critical to support our campaigns now, so that these regulations can be properly re-shaped now - by you, or with your help.
With the plundering of your 'nutritional inventory' as early as 2005 in Europe, where supermarket-type vitamins and minerals may be the only sorts of products you would be allowed to offer patients and clients, could you still deliver the healthcare service you would wish to?
The EU Food Supplements Directive is just the beginning No country is insulated from this attack.
The prohibition of vitamin and mineral forms in the EU Food Supplements Directive represents only the first phase of the legislation. The second phase will limit the maximum doses of nutrients (most likely they will be evaluated according to the international risk assessment guidelines being developed through Codex Alimentarius), and the third phase (proposed by the European Commission to be established by 2007) will restrict the range of all other nutrient forms presently in food supplements (e.g. plant extracts, phytonutrients, amino acids, enzymes, essential fatty acids, probiotics, fiber, etc). And it does NOT stop there.
The controversial and sometimes flawed science that is being developed and proposed to limit doses for products controlled under the Food Supplements Directive, is precisely that which is being considered for adoption by Codex Alimentarius, which is in the process of developing global guidelines for nutrients used as health supplements.
The World Institute of Natural Health Sciences is working to support the development of further strategic legal challenges in support of the industry's and the expert legal teams. This work is focused on benefiting the future of natural healthcare, not only in western countries, but also in countries on continents such as Asia, Africa and South America that have very long-standing traditions of herbal and natural medicine.
Under the 'Codex risk assessment microscope,' many of these traditions would unlikely fair well. In their place, the regulators seem content to offer a diet of western pharmaceutical drugs known to be by far the most hazardous group of substances commonly ingested by humans.
Strategic Legal Challenges. We are firm in our view that a series of strategic legal challenges are required to ensure that the future of natural healthcare is secured worldwide.
Pro-Active Investigations.
In support of these legal challenges, we believe a series of pro-active investigatory programs are needed to expose the vested interests and their efforts while, at the same time, bringing the real situation to light in the industry and the community at large.
On-going PR and Media Campaign.
Inclusive of dealing with negative spin in the media that is so often based on misrepresented or flawed scientific research, our offensive media campaigns are of the highest priority.
Professional Communications Programs.
In addition to pro-active PR and media campaigns, we intend to launch world wide communications programs to promote the volumes and volumes of scientific evidence in support of the natural health industry, its remedies and therapies and make these easier to understand by the consumers they most impact.
Practitioners are also consumers! Please refer to our Consumers page for further information.
Only the following nutrient sources will be allowed under the EU Food Supplements Directives. This is the so-called "positive list."
VITAMINS
1. VITAMIN A
(a) retinol
(b) retinyl acetate
(c) retinyl palmitate
(d) beta-carotene
2. VITAMIN D
(a) cholecalciferol
(b) ergocalciferol
3. VITAMIN E
(a) D-alpha-tocopherol
(b) DL-alpha-tocopherol
(c) D-alpha-tocopheryl acetate
(d) DL-alpha-tocopheryl acetate
(e) D-alpha-tocopheryl acid succinate
4. VITAMIN K
(a) phylloquinone (phytomenadione)
5. VITAMIN B1
(a) thiamin hydrochloride
(b) thiamin mononitrate
6. VITAMIN B2
(a) riboflavin
(b) riboflavin 5-phosphate, sodium
7. NIACIN
(a) nicotinic acid
(b) nicotinamide
8. PANTOTHENIC ACID
(a) D-pantothenate, calcium
(b) D-pantothenate, sodium
(c) dexpanthenol
9. VITAMIN B6
(a) pyridoxine hydrochloride
(b) pyridoxine 5-phosphate
10. FOLIC ACID
(a) pteroylmonoglutamic acid
11. VITAMIN B12
(a) cyanocobalamin
(b) hydroxocobalamin
12. BIOTIN
(a) D-biotin
13. VITAMIN C
(a) L-ascorbic acid
(b) sodium-L-ascorbate
(c) calcium-L-ascorbate
(d) potassium-L-ascorbate
(e) L-ascorbyl 6-palmitate
MINERALS
- calcium carbonate
- calcium chloride
- calcium salts of citric acid
- calcium gluconate
- calcium glycerophosphate
- calcium lactate
- calcium salts of orthophosphoric acid
- calcium hydroxide
- calcium oxide
- magnesium acetate
- magnesium carbonate
- magnesium chloride
- magnesium salts of citric acid
- magnesium gluconate
- magnesium glycerophosphate
- magnesium salts of orthophosphoric acid
- magnesium lactate
- magnesium hydroxide
- magnesium oxide
- magnesium sulphate
- ferrous carbonate
- ferrous citrate
- ferric ammonium citrate
- ferrous gluconate
- ferrous fumarate
- ferric sodium diphosphate
- ferrous lactate ferrous sulphate
- ferric diphosphate (ferric pyrophosphate)
- ferric saccharate elemental iron (carbonyl+electrolytic+hydrogen reduced)
- cupric carbonate
- cupric citrate
- cupric gluconate
- cupric sulphate
- copper lysine complex
- sodium iodide
- sodium iodate
- potassium iodide
- potassium iodate
- zinc acetate
- zinc chloride
- zinc citrate
- zinc gluconate
- zinc lactate
- zinc oxide
- zinc carbonate
- zinc sulphate
- manganese carbonate
- manganese chloride
- manganese citrate
- manganese gluconate
- manganese glycerophosphate
- manganese sulphate
- sodium bicarbonate
- sodium carbonate
- sodium chloride
- sodium citrate
- sodium gluconate
- sodium lactate
- sodium hydroxide
- sodium salts of orthophosphoric acid
- potassium bicarbonate
- potassium carbonate
- potassium chloride
- potassium citrate
- potassium gluconate
- potassium glycerophosphate
- potassium lactate
- potassium hydroxide
- potassium salts of orthophosphoric acid
- sodium selenate
- sodium hydrogen selenite
- sodium selenite
- chromium (III)
- chloride chromium (III)
- sulphate ammonium molybdate (molybdenum (VI))
- sodium molybdate (molybdenum (VI))
- potassium fluoride sodium fluoride
Substance: Benefit
*By, 2007, the European Commission will most likely issue further restrictive positive lists for other nutrient groups including essential fatty acids, amino acids, phytonutrients, antioxidants, etc. **pending submission of Scientific Dossiers; see www.foodsupsinfo.net for details.
Source: The Alliance for Natural Health www.alliance-natural-health.org.
How Can You Help?
The World Institute of Natural Health Sciences (WINHS) is working with allied groups, scientists and professionals to enhance and protect your freedom of choice in nutrition and health care.
WINHS is working to ensure that alternative and natural healthcare is maintained and further developed for the health and well being of future generations.
We work with a host of dedicated professionals, campaigners, consumers, scientists, medical doctors, practitioners, innovative companies and suppliers of natural health products who fully understand that natural products, in combination with a good, balanced diet, provide us with the most important foundation for successful healthcare.
We believe that it is the personal right of the individual to sufficiently educate and empower themselves in order to make informed decisions and take control of their own health if it is to be both effective and economically viable in the long-term.
There are key forces working against the development of 'natural health' as a mainstay in health care, these being:
A complex of European Union (EU) directives and regulations that are set to reduce access by 450 million consumers (the entire EU population now comprised of 25 countries).
These EU laws include the Food Supplements Directive, the Human Medicinal Products (Pharmaceuticals) Directive, the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive, the Fortified Foods Directive and the Nutrition and Health Claims Regulation.
You can find out more about these by reading materials contained throughout our web site. These Directives are all at different stages of enactment into EU and Member State Law.
Vital to our work here is further clarification of the EU Food Supplements Directive as ruled on by European Court of Justice on 12 July 2005 in spite of the positive opinion earlier offered by the Advocate General to the Court on April 5, 2005.
The Development of international guidelines on food supplements and other natural products, which is being developed through the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
As background, the Codex Alimentarius Commission (CAC) was established in 1963 as a means both of facilitating trade between countries and ensuring safety of foods. Codex Alimentarius, which essentially means "food code," is used as a series of international guidelines or standards for a very wide range of food groups. The Food & Agricultural Organization (FAO) and World Health Organization (WHO) of the United Nations oversee the CAC.
The first major guideline for natural health products, which is essentially, derived from the EU Food Supplements Directive, concerns vitamin and mineral food supplements only. However botanicals are on the Codex 'drawing board' and guidelines for other nutrient groups will inevitably follow.
Although heavily protested by the natural health and innovative food supplements industries, the text for the Codex Guideline on Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements was ratified after 10 years of negotiation at a full meeting of the CAC in Rome on 4 July 2005.
However, the precise mechanism by which maximum potencies, or "Upper Safe Levels," will be established has not been finally agreed and this will be considered at the forthcoming meeting of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) in Bonn, Germany, in November 2005.
The current area that WINHS supports in relation to Codex is the Alliance for Natural Health's (ANH) program to commission independent, leading scientific leaders to develop scientifically sound risk assessment methods. 'Scientific risk assessment' has been agreed in Codex as the basis by which safety and dosages of food supplements will be established.
NOTE: See Kevin Miller's 2005 documentary on Codex, narrated by Dame Judi Dench, to give you a 'big picture' view on Codex. You can access this via the banner on the top of the WINHS homepage. After viewing, please do whatever you can possibly do to support our efforts.
Media threats to natural health. There is no doubt there is a concerted anti-natural health bias to articles and news reports continually running in the mass media. These frequently cite 'scientific papers' that show harmful effects of a very limited range of supplements, often the synthetic forms (as in the case of negative press on vitamin E and antioxidants). These reports need to be balanced against the huge and ever-growing scientific literature that refutes the bias reports and documents the extremely beneficial effects of natural products used in health care.
Additionally, there are many thousands of published research papers on natural ingredients, and the vast majority of these point to beneficial effects.
To positively shape the EU Directives and Codex guidelines, which are set to affect your own access to food supplements and related products, we urgently need your help to build support, to lobby, to put pressure on the politicians, and to win the court case, now referred to European Court of Justice.
Are you among the 40-60% of consumers who regularly take nutritional supplements?
If you take mainly the types of vitamin and mineral supplements you find in supermarkets or pharmacies, you almost certainly have little to worry about in relation either to the EU Food Supplements Directive, the rash of other directives that are set to follow out of Brussels, and Codex.
However, if you take the more innovative products you get from specialist health stores, complementary practitioners or some direct mail companies, you should be extremely concerned.
These are the sorts of products from which millions claim to have experienced profound benefits. These products are at serious risk of being banned!
Are you among the majority of people in tropical and subtropical countries who use natural, traditional systems of health care, based largely on the use of plant products (herbs)?
If so, Codex might ultimately have a large bearing on your ability to access plant products that you, and generations before you, have been using. Placing particular herbs and minerals under the scrutiny of the proposed, flawed Codex risk assessment system does not bode well; some of the metals used in Ayurveda (Indian traditional health culture) have been recently attacked by western scientists who seem to not understand the context in which these products are used.
The EU Directives - as well as Codex Guidelines or future Standards - will potentially seriously reduce or eliminate availability of these most effective innovative or traditional products in a matter of a few years unless we act now!
The EU Food Supplements Directive could effectively ban around 300 of the nearly 420 vitamin and mineral forms that are presently on the market in Europe if unchallenged or unclarified in the European courts as of 1 August 2005.
These 300 ingredients can be found in around 5000 products on the UK market alone!
The Food Supplements Directive only allows use of 15 minerals in food supplements, despite increasing evidence that our bodies need over 60 minerals for optimum health! No forms of boron, vanadium or silicon, nor any plant-derived, chelated or ionic mineral forms, are on the list of permitted vitamins and mineral forms.
Making matters worse, the allowed forms of vitamins are often the synthetic, inorganic forms, not the natural, food forms, despite good scientific evidence to show that the natural food forms such as the mixed tocopherols / tocotrienols (Vitamin E) and mixed carotenoids (Vitamin A) are more bioavailable and effective than their synthetic equivalents.
If you believe that nutrition and supplementation of the diet is of critical importance to healthcare, now and in the future, we urge you to let as many people as possible know firstly about the EU Directives and Codex and their potential impact on leading-edge supplements, and secondly, about the WINHS and what this worldwide organization is doing to help rectify the situation.
You are kindly advised never to use our pages as the only source of information for decisions with regard to your health. If you suffer from a bad health condition contact a recognized therapist, physician or pharmacist. In case of ill animals consult a veterinary surgeon or a veterinary non-medical practitioner. The articles and essays on our internet pages are written without medical/editorial support and supervision. Never take medicinal products (including medicinal herbs) without consulting your therapist, physician or pharmacist.