Sir Roger Gale
Member of Parliament for North Thanet (Margate, Herne Bay & The Villages)
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Gale pushes to save vitamins and jobs as "Time runs out"
Consumers launch last ditch campaign with celebrity support
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February 24th 2010
Roger Gale today joined celebrity Jenny Seagrove to urge Gordon Brown to block Europe’s imminent bid to ban thousands of vitamin & mineral food supplements, used safely in this country for decades.
As they launched the Time Is Running Out campaign, campaign group Consumers for Health Choice unveiled thousands of posters in every British High Street, and one million postcards to lobby MPs.
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Roger backed Jenny, pledged to make this an election issue, and insisted “Consumers must be allowed to have free access to safe supplements of their choice.”
“I am a firm opponent of the proposed EU Food Supplements Directive and believe that it represents yet another unwarranted tier of European Union bureaucracy and interference.
I will stand up for retailers and do my best to protect the expected store closures and the thousands of jobs that could be lost by denying the public their right to choose.”
The EU is poised to sound the death of vitamins and supplements at anything more than meaningless doses; Britain’s chemists, supermarkets, and healthfood shops will be cleared of all other products by 31st December. At the moment, higher-dose supplements, all within proven safe limits, are taken by consumers helping stave off everything from general tiredness, SAD syndrome and coughs & colds to PMT and restless legs.
There is much anger among consumers. The commitment to keep supplements available and to fight the Brussels bureaucrats was made in 2005 under the Blair Government, yet almost five years later the Government has failed to implement its own policy.
Sue Croft, Director of CHC, the active group behind the highly successful Save-Our-Supplements campaign said:
“We do feel very let down. The Food Standards Agency was instructed to fight our corner in Brussels; they accept that our supplements are safe - yet they have failed to speak up for British people. As things stand, doses of all vitamins and all minerals could be reduced to meaningless amounts to appease countries such as France and Germany who wish to control the market. Such an outcome would be catastrophic.
“The official view of EU regulators remains that the destruction of the British industry is an acceptable price to pay for harmonizing the market across all Member Stares. That is outrageous yet our Government is allowing it to happen. Gordon’s Government should wake up, keep its promises and block this burdensome and meddlesome legislation. We will make this a General Election issue; perhaps that will help concentrate their minds.”
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