Thursday, January 18, 2024, 2:00 p.m
“Fourteen years of misleading people through unsubstantiated health claims have now hopefully come to an end,” says Dr. Kai Joachimsen, Managing Director of the Federal Association of the Pharmaceutical Industry (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 the spirit of consumer protection. This is pleasing because we as BPI have been continuously campaigning for many years to ensure that the European Commission finally resumes the assessment of health claims for botanicals, which has been on hold since 2010.”
“Due to the suspension of the evaluation, many products have been on the market since 2010 that do not allow for an informed purchase decision, because health-related advertising claims for foods containing plant-based substances cannot be verified by consumers. The resumption of scientific assessments is long overdue; an applicable 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 to consumers that has occurred so far, there is still a disadvantage for manufacturers of herbal medicines. They have to shoulder higher production and regulatory costs than manufacturers of officially untested dietary supplements (food). We need a clear demarcation here, which will now hopefully be made with the commitment of the members of the EU Parliament,” says Joachimsen.
You can find our demands in our BPI position paper: Health-related claims on plant-based substances in food.
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