In my previous post, I talked about why the regulatory aspect is as important as the efficacy when we are developing a new product or ingredient.
Following this line, today, I would to talk about the principal problem of the EFSA Health Claims regulation, from a user point of view.
The main target of our activity is to sell products, but when we are selling we need to comply with many rules in terms of packaging, what is written, what is designed, the brands we are using, as we cannot claim any treatment for our products.
This is hard to understand…? Yes! But…
What happens with internet sales?
What happens with the internet, newspapers, magazines and so on?
There are many very well-known media dedicated to our industry, not only a specific one, but also general one. Mass media are talking about healthy products every day, talking about the wonderful benefits of a certain plant, or how it could even treat a certain disease.
Many tv shows are dedicated to health, but it looks like that the authorities are not interested in what they are talking about. Sometimes, they are trying to show or to prove a certain cheat, but many times, it is not the case.
How is it that a broccoli extract is presented as an oncological product even to treat, but the authorities are still in silence against those newspaper…
Media, generally talking, are a huge source of information for the user, without any filter in many cases. Some are very serious, and you need to register to get an access to the information, but many other are not, and those are the sources of the problems, new rules we do not agree, difficulties to explain to the customer what is the difference between a collagen product that costs 4,95€ on the general store compared with a product being sold in a pharmacy for 18€, apparently the composition is the same.
All those new rules are not helping us to make understand the user the difference between a powder of a plant and a certain extract supported by several clinical trials, including safety data, in vivo and in vitro trials.
Who is responsible for this? Why this double standard system? What can we do?
Good question, but unfortunately, there is no possible response for the time being…
I will follow in this direction in my next publications in this blog and I look forward to get your comments and suggestion.
Axel Salomon
Europe Sales Director
