I got a leaflet through from my health food store today. It had some interesting stuff in it so I thought I'd type some of it up for you to read too. I'll try to type up the rest in later posts.

The following is from 'Focus On Health', titled 'Lib Dems Come Clean On Supplements':

In the event of Lib Dems holding any political sway after the general election, legislation on food supplements and herbal remedies would be reviewed.

Leading food industry lobbyist, Christ Whitehouse, has welcomed the Lib Dem election health manifesto as a "stunning achievement".

He said: "As the recent Conservative Commons Motion said, Consumers for Health Choice has succeeded in making the future of the humble vitamin pill a matter of national importance. Now we have the second national opposition party (after Conservatives) including the matter directly in its General Election manifesto."

The manifesto commits the Lib Dems to ensuring that "people continue to have the right to exercise choice over the food supplements they buy" and warns that legislation "could place unnecessary restrictions upon consumers' choice of vitamins and minerals." The manifesto then goes on to promise that a Lib Dem Government would "review any legislation to give effect to these directives with a view to maximising consumer choice over the use of food supplements."

The Conservatives have also included support for supplements in the election manifesto.

The following is titled 'Directive Update', from the same sheet:

There is good progress with the legal challenge of the shameful Food Supplements Directive, which the Advocate General Leendert Geelhoed recommended on April 5th should be rejected as being "invalid" by the European Court of Justice. However, it is by no means certain that the Judges will conform to the Advocate General's advice, and a final judgement is still some weeks away.

Meanwhile the even more catastrophic Herbal Directive is on track to soon become UK law, and the deadline for a legal challenge has passed, so the only hope for altering its course lies with a change of government. This Directive has been branded as being "perverse, blatantly suppressive, and anti-health" by a group of more than 300 British scientists and doctors headed by Professor Arnold Beckett OBE, who add that it will drastically reduce the availability of herbal products in the UK, inevitably leading to an increased workload of an already overburdened NHS.

Both the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats have pledged support for natural supplements in their election manifestos."