Following a landmark challenge in the European Courts of Justice (ECJ) brought by the Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) and Nutri-Link Ltd to the contentious Food Supplements Directive, which effectively proposed to ban 75% of vitamin and mineral forms, Advocate General Geelhoed, the senior adviser to the ECJ, gave his opinion in favor of the Alliance’s case. In short, this means the chances of consumers being able to continue using the natural food supplements they believe are beneficial to their health are now greatly increased.

In a statement released on April 5th, the Advocate General concluded that, “The Food Supplements Directive infringes the principle of proportionality because basic principles of community law, such as the requirements of legal protection, of legal certainty and of sound administration have not properly been taken into account; It is therefore invalid under EU law.”

It should be stressed that the Advocate General’s pronouncement is not a ruling. That will likely come later—around June—from the ECJ judges. But typically, in the vast majority of cases, the Court Judgment follows the recommendations of the Advocate General. If the Advocate General’s recommendations are adopted, in effect, the ban on vitamin and mineral forms not included on the EU’s positive list, due to come into effect on August 1, 2005, will be declared illegal. In essence, the positive list of allowable nutrient forms will be deemed to be too narrow, too restrictive, and based on flawed science. According to the ANH, this would avoid the totally irrational situations that the Food Supplements Directive would otherwise create. For example, synthetically produced selenium would have been allowed on the positive list, while the natural source found in Brazil nuts would not; synthetic forms of vitamin E would be allowed, but the natural food forms would not.