Madam, - As an Irish citizen and a consumer of food supplements, I have been following with great concern the progress of the EU Food Supplement Directive, which is to come into effect at the end of this month. Apart from the fact that the directive ignores both individual freedom of choice and individual nutritional need, it is a complete contradiction in terms.
It will effectively ban a range of safe supplements and limit the availability of many more. Such supplements range from Vitamin C, which is common and used to fend off colds and flu, to more specific supplements that many people rely on to maintain their health without resorting to pharmaceuticals.
Even more worrying is that the EU proposes to "medicalise" these supplements, so that only GPs, the majority of whom have no alternative health training and who favour the pharmaceutical over natural options, can "prescribe" them.
Imagine this scenario: a child develops eczema. His mother is aware of the success of alternative treatments such as nutritional therapy, homeopathy and herbalism, and takes her son to an alternative health practitioner. The practitioner advises that the child should take specific supplements to cure the ailment. The mother cannot get these supplements in the health shop, and the practitioner cannot "prescribe" them as they are restricted by the EU Directive. The mother has to go to a GP to ask if she can get a prescription for them. The GP, unqualified in natural health, decides against the alternative practitioner's recommendation, and instead prescribes steroid cream, which has a host of nasty side effects ranging from skin thinning and tearing, to Cushing's Syndrome, diabetes, and increased blood pressure to name but a few. The child is denied the natural, safer option.
I urge your readers to oppose this directive. It is not too late; hundreds of thousands of people across Europe are against this directive, but I feel many of the people in power are simply unaware of its disastrous impact. Yours, etc.,
FIONA O'FARRELL, Beachdale, Kilcoole, Co Wicklow.