A local health food store has likened a new EU rule (Directive) to ‘using a sledgehammer to crack a nut’.
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Remedies Health Store, Abbeyside, which stocks a wide range of herbal and food supplements, has said that a new EU law requiring natural supplements to undergo testing is expensive and unnecessary.
Owner Mr. Jürgen Denzinger, who has been in business for more than 15 years said: “There is already ample regulation under food law to safeguard the public from unhealthy products. The Directive is discriminatory against herbals from outside the EU to the detriment of Chinese and ayurvedic traditions and is prohibitively expensive for the low-run traditional indigenous herbs. The Directive will force customers underground to buy their herbal supplements online from potentially unscrupulous suppliers.”
The EU Traditional Herbal Products Directive (THMPD) requires all herbal medicinal products to obtain an authorisation to be sold within the EU. A company needs to demonstrate that the herbal medicine has been in use within the EU for at least 30 years or 15 years within the EU and 30 years outside the EU. A petition to ‘Save Herbal Medicine’ has secured nearly half a million signatures from supporters in just two days calling for the suspension of the directive. The petition organisers say the THMPD is a “draconian move that helps drug companies and ignores thousands of years of medical knowledge”.
Mr Denzinger is urging local herb fans to sign the petition and support > the Alliance for Natural Health in its legal challenge.
“If this directive is not challenged, it will lead to very restricted access to a much smaller range of herbal products,” he added.
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