EU restricts vitamins and alternative remedies

Purveyors of herbal remedies and food supplements are getting jittery. So are their customers. Draconian new laws governing the sale of herbs and nutrients are making their way through the European Parliament which could, according to campaigners, clear the shelves of healthfood stores.

Practitioners of alternative medicine claim their capacity to help their patients will be seriously curtailed. They say the new laws are an assault on the natural health movement. And some even suspect a conspiracy, driven by a multinational pharmaceutical industry anxious that growing interest in natural remedies could threaten its global markets.

Yesterday, the European Parliament voted to back proposals for a registration scheme to set basic quality standards for herbal remedies, and for labelling laws.

The vote marked a significant step towards ratification of the Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive, which seeks to apply to herbal remedies the same regulations that cover pharmaceutical drugs. This would ensure they are safe and that consumers have a guarantee. It is expected to be passed by the end of December.

A second measure, the Food Supplements Directive, has been passed by the EU and is due to be implemented in the UK in 2003. It will ban any vitamin, mineral or supplement not on an approved list and will specify that most be sold at a lower dose.

Consumers for Health Choice, a lobbying group representing the healthfood industry, says popular remedies which may be affected include St John's Wort, echinacea and high-dose tablets of Vitamin C.

The restrictions will apply not only to the active agent in the products but to the other ingredients as well. Up to 300 "safe and popular" supplements which do not appear on the draft list could be lost.

A spokesman said: "One manufacturer, Holland & Barrett, have told us that they will have to re-formulate every multivitamin they sell."

On Tuesday, the lobbying group handed in a one million-signature petition to the House of Commons protesting at the changes. Celebrities backing the campaign include Sir Paul McCartney, Sir Elton John, Sir Cliff Richard and Phil Collins.

Ministers say the protests are overdone. They claim the backing of groups including the British Herbal Medicine Association, the European Herbal Practitioners Association and the Medical Toxicology Unit at Guy's hospital. The unit published research highlighting the dangers of some herbal remedies, which may contain powerful active ingredients in indeterminate doses.

The most contentious aspect of the directive is that any new remedy with a pharmacological effect must have a licence. To do this it will be tested in a similar way to a pharmaceutical drug at a cost, campaigners say, of £100,000.

Established herbal medicines will be granted a licence automatically but only if they have been in use anywhere in the world for 30 years and within the EU for at least 10 years. That will rule out many ancient herbal remedies from China and the Far East introduced to the West within the past decade.

The proposals have provoked outrage among some sections of the herbal medicine market, worth an estimated £2.4bn annually in the UK. Dr Rob Verkerk, of the Alliance for Natural Health, representing herbal medicine practitioners, said: "Thousands of people across Europe rely on herbal medicines to improve their quality of life. If these medicines are removed, patients will have no alternative but to use conventional medicines that are many times more dangerous."

Campaigners say the measures will benefit multinational companies that trade in a limited range of low-dose supplements across the EU but will devastate the business of smaller, specialist independent retailers and manufacturers.

But the Labour Euro MP and health spokeswoman, Catherine Stihler, welcomed the vote. She said British consumers could be caught unawares by "shoddy" herbal goods containing half- measures and second-rate products."Whether it's milk thistle, ginseng or willow bark, the pills you buy should have the full measure, and not a watered down half," she said.

Medicine men: What the new laws will mean on the high street

Traditional chinese medicine practitioner

Song Ke is cautious about the herbal medicines directive. "In some ways, it is good. We want to have some sort of control of these products. People's health and safety must be properly looked after. But there is a danger that much old traditional Chinese medicine will be lost. Although many of the remedies have been used for thousands of years, to European countries they are relatively new and that could mean they are banned. That is unfair." He has been treating patients in Britain for 17 years and spent a decade before that acquiring his skills in China. He runs the Asante Academy of Chinese Medicine in Highgate, north London, which offers training and treatment to patients with intractable problems. We support the legislation but we want the Government to legislate carefully."

Health food shop owner

Mike Abrahams, owner of Wild Oats Whole Foods in Bristol, said: "I will lose 90 per cent of my products under the directive. They are all banned high-dose supplements." He has run his shop for 22 years, and for the first seven he did not sell supplements, believing them to be unnecessary with a balanced diet. But after taking supplements himself, he felt the depletion of nutrients made them essential. "Manufacturers who sell low-dose supplements are not interested in health, they are interested in markets. They are low quality, low cost and they sell at a high price." Mr Abrahams said his shop would "probably survive" but his health and that of his customers would suffer. "The people who have done the research ... have not done it properly. None were nutritionists."