In the US, the American food watchdog, the FDA, is doing things slightly differently, but the upshot of their actions and of certain legislation currently pending before Congress, will be quite similar to what we are experiencing in Europe right now. Byron J. Richards, author of a book that is a wake-up call to Americans seeing their health freedoms vanish, has explained how and why this is done in an excellent article: The FDA - a Wolf in Sheep's Clothing.

But let's see how this principle of precaution is implemented in Europe...

- - -

The precautionary principle: a critique in the context of the EU Food Supplements Directive

Jaap Hanekamp, a Dutch scientist, closely examined the use of the precautionary principle in its European implementation and he published what he found in the journal Environmental Liability. He argues that since both deficiency and excess of nutrient intake can bring dangers, but since the danger of deficiency vastly exceeds the dangers of excess, the 'precautionary principle' is being applied in a very one-sided way. By focusing on the supposed dangers of excess and not taking the preventive use of nutrition into consideration, the principle becomes slanted, if not outright illogical.

"The Supplements Directive ... was implemented in order to safeguard human health in view of the potential toxicity of excess intake of micronutrient food supplements. However, (micro)nutrient food compounds differ from other chemical substances in foods in that they are essential for the human physiology, so that different adverse (toxicological!) effects can result from intakes that are too low as well as too high. Nevertheless, the focus of the directive is solely on the toxicology of excess."

The idea of legislators seems to be that, as long as RDA levels of nutrients are widely available, they have done their duty in promoting public health - but, says Hanekamp:

"Established RDAs, and this is the emerging paradigm, may ... have become obsolete in that they are insufficient to prevent long-term DNA damage, resulting in, for example, cancer and aging. In summary, the perspective materialising from state-of-art scientific research in relation to any type of micronutrient is that the actual ‘mandatory’ amount of micronutrients for the human organism that maximises a healthy lifespan, in a number of cases turns out to be considerably higher than the amount needed to prevent acute deficiency diseases. It seems increasingly clear that RDAs are too restrictive an approach to micronutrients and their health attributes, which are not only a matter of preventing deficiency diseases but, more importantly, lie in the field of long-term benefits such as reduced cancer and cardiovascular incidents and decelerating aging."

Just as the sufficiency of RDA level nutrient intakes is an unconfirmed assumption, the effects of enshrining the principles of low level nutrition into legislation are not necessarily beneficial:

"Whether or not supplements might add to the overall health of European citizens is, from a regulatory point of view, regarded as irrelevant. Thereby, the Directive assumes what actually should be proven, namely, that the health effects of an over-regulatory excess toxicity approach would be superior to alternatives. The concomitant assumption is that there are no health detriments from proposed (over)regulation. A choice is presented between health and money (economy), or even health with no loss at all, as a peripheral presumption is that the market will find a better and a cheaper as well as a safe way. Something (health) is gained with nothing lost (no adverse health effects from over–regulation). The burden of proof of safety corresponding to excess toxicity subsequently lies firmly with the marketing parties."