Unfair to vitamins
From Christopher Booker
Sir: With respect to my editor, Dominic Lawson, I fear that both he And Matthew Parris are missing the point of vitamin supplements and herbal renaeditis (Letters, 1 May). They are perfectly entitled to share their cynicism about the value of such products. What neither has done, however, is produce any evidence to justify the crude and heavy-handed way in which the European Commission, on the basis of hopelessly flawed science, now intends to make thousands of them illegal, even though the vast majority pose no risk to health whatever. The only beneficiaries of these new laws will be the pharmaceutical companies which lobbied so hard for their adoption, but whose own officially licensed drugs kill thousands every year.
I have no particular brief for 'health products' per se, any more than I do for most of the other victims of regulatory overkill on whom I report for Mr Lawson in the Sunday Telegraph. My real concern is whether it is sensible to hand over so much power to such a bizarre, unaccountable and corrupt system of lawmaking, which so few people seem to understand. Mr Parris may be too grand to bother with such trivial issues, but I would be grateful for this chance to clarify the point with my editor.
Christopher Booker
Litton, Somerset
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