EU Health Claims Report: Clear signal for consumer protection

23-Jan-2024

"Fourteen years of misleading consumers with unproven health claims have hopefully come to an end," says Dr. Kai Joachimsen, Managing Director of the German Pharmaceutical Industry Association (BPI) on the occasion of the report on the implementation of the Health Claims Regulation adopted today in the European Parliament. "The EU Parliament is sending a clear signal in favor of consumer protection. This is gratifying, because we at the BPI have been continuously campaigning for many years for the European Commission to finally resume the evaluation of health claims for botanicals, which has been on hold since 2010."

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BPI calls for the resumption of the scientific evaluation of health claims for botanicals.

"Due to the suspension of the assessment since 2010, many products have been on the market that do not allow an informed purchasing decision, because health claims for foods with botanicals are not verifiable for consumers. The resumption of scientific assessments is long overdue, and a valid legal framework with clear regulations has long been in place. Now the EU Commission must finally act and implement the applicable law," emphasizes Joachimsen.

"In addition to the potential damage caused to consumers to date, manufacturers of herbal medicinal products are still at a disadvantage. They have to shoulder higher production and regulatory costs than manufacturers of officially untested food supplements (foodstuffs). We need a clear demarcation here, which will hopefully now be achieved with the commitment of the members of the EU Parliament," says Joachimsen.

Note: This article has been translated using a computer system without human intervention. LUMITOS offers these automatic translations to present a wider range of current news. Since this article has been translated with automatic translation, it is possible that it contains errors in vocabulary, syntax or grammar. The original article in German can be found here.

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