Food supplement producers stifled
His speech was fascinating 2,209 words were spoken by him on the quality and safety of food, all without one single mention of the word nutrition.
As such, his speech goes a long way towards explaining the remarkable claim made recently by the commission in its press release on the draft EU regulation on nutrition and health claims made on food,
which states that "the basic principle in nutrition is that there are no 'good foods' and 'bad foods' but rather good diets and bad diets".
Mr Byrne, further said that "in order to serve consumers, and also the needs of small-scale producers, I sought to ensure that my proposals would not inadvertently stifle small, local, traditional food producers".
One can only wonder, then, why small scale producers of food supplements were not afforded similar protection from the EU Food Supplements Directive? Given that food supplements are statistically safer than food itself, it is no small wonder that many people see the pharmaceutical industry as one of the main beneficiaries of legislation that will remove up to 300 nutrients and thousands of products from the EU market.
Far from being a protector of our health, Mr Byrne and his colleagues now appear to be one of the biggest risks to it.
Paul Anthony Taylor,
63, Langholm Crescent,
Darlington,
County Durham,
United Kingdom.
