Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 119)
TUESDAY 19 MAY 1998
Mr Maurice Hanssen, Mr Anthony Bush and Mr Derek
Shrimpton
100. Let us just explore in concrete terms what
you say about B6. What do you say?
(Mr Bush) Invariably we would say that the product
is free from a number of allergens. We sell the product, vitamin
B6, very strongly on the pack and in fact we say very little about
the product. If we look at the survey of the consumers that we
did—
101. That is a miracle. This product markets
itself, does it?
(Mr Hanssen) I am just coming on to that point. If
we ask people where they get information about food supplements
and on what basis they choose food supplements, they say they
get that information from newspapers and the media.
102. And you say nothing yourselves, you just
put B6 in a little potty with the tablets in and it sells itself.
It is a dream. I can see that I was always in the wrong business.
(Mr Hanssen) It is a rather competitive market.
(Mr Bush) It is not quite the dream that you paint.
The point I was making is that vitamin B6 is a substance which
is well known in the media and actually by consumers for helping
them. What I am actually selling is a brand, I am not selling
vitamin B6.
103. So it is the Peter Black brand which you
are selling.
(Mr Bush) It is the Peter Black brand or whatever.
104. What about the Holland & Barrett example
which was quoted to us which said that the B6 product was helpful
in relieving breast tenderness, depression and water retention,
what do you say about that?
(Mr Hanssen) It is illegal.
105. It concerns you straightaway, does it?
(Mr Hanssen) We would object to it.
106. And you do not do that?
(Mr Bush) No.
Chairman
107. You said that when it was an illegal claim
you sometimes referred it to the authorities and no action has
been taken. Who do you refer it to and what action is taken?
(Mr Hanssen) If it is a product like that then we
would normally refer it either to a local trading standards officer,
which is really the normal path and they are the only people who
have ever done anything, or to the Medicines Control Agency, who
have 19 full-time ex-policemen going around being tough on everybody
else, but that is the end of the road. The trading standards officers
have occasionally taken action; once or twice a year something
happens.
(Dr Shrimpton) I was asked by a Surrey trading standards
officer some 15 months ago now for a view on another supplement
which was falsely claimed on the label according to their analysis
and whether I would be prepared to be a professional witness and
I said yes, I would. It transpired that they were unable to follow
this case because there had been irregularities in obtaining the
samples and they could not obtain funding to repeat it.
Mr Marsden
108. Do you impart any information about vitamin
B6 to GPs, for instance?
(Mr Bush) No, we do not.
109. So you have no communication with GPs about
vitamin B6?
(Mr Bush) It is an interesting point both for B6 and
for food supplements that there are very few companies that spend
a lot of time and money visiting general practitioners to discuss
food supplements. I think part of the reason is because very rarely
do doctors get involved in the area, which helps to explain some
of the comments that were made about the lack of comments in the
BMJ. They are not terribly interested.
110. Obviously if this was to go ahead as planned
and it was only available on prescription you would not feel obliged
to actually send the information to GPs offering your views on
the benefits of giving it to the patient.
(Mr Bush) I think the issue about whether vitamin
B6 should be on prescription is to do with, first of all, whether
the people who want vitamin B6 will actually go to their GPs and
our feeling is that unless there is a significant safety reason
that would be an inappropriate additional burden on GPs.
111. I hear all that. If it goes ahead as planned
I would have thought you would have a vested interest in that
the main people who are going to be sending out positive signals
about vitamin B6 and signing the bits of paper are going to be
those GPs. Therefore, I would have thought it was in your interest
to make sure that the benefits are passed on to those same people.
(Mr Hanssen) How can we tell them the benefits if
we have not got a licence? Indeed, how do they prescribe it? As
I said, tuberculosis is the only indication that we have got so
far for one that is accepted as a licence. We have also got this
other middle period, too, the 11 to 49 mg pharmacy only. There
have been quite a lot of surveys in the past to show that the
sort of advice you would get from the pharmacist on this or any
other type of product is not terribly impressive. We think this
is a rather artificial distinction as well in the regulations
and it has not been thought through.
Chairman
112. If it became a prescription medicine above
50 mg it would have to pass further tests—
(Mr Hanssen) I think most of us would give up. You
have heard from the other experts that to prove it for PMS is
extraordinarily difficult. I am not quite sure how the MCA would
licence it, on what grounds and for what. Also, it would cost
rather a lot more than it costs at the moment, which is another
problem.
113. Because the prescription charge would be
payable rather than the current over-the-counter charge.
(Mr Hanssen) It would cost considerably more, with
no safety factor built in at all and with quite a number of presumably
male doctors not even believing in PMS. Our experience of shops
which were both pharmacies—we have enquired of them—and
had a health section is that people have not gone to the pharmacy
section about B6 when it is not available in the other one because
I suppose people do not want to go up to a young assistant and
say, "Excuse me, I have got PMS. Could I have some B6?"
because obviously you have got to give a reason.
Mrs Organ
114. You say it is in the press. Maybe two years
ago there was not an awful lot about vitamin B6 in the press.
Can I ask you whether your company gives information, training
or advice to the retailers at health food stores? I would suggest
to you that the majority of people that go into health food stores
are women and they will say to the person behind the counter,
"What do you have that gives me some help with mood swings,
depression, PMT ..." and they will say, "We have got
..." Do you give those people advice?
(Mr Bush) Manufacturers and retailers do help to train
sales assistants. We have a number of nutritional advisers who
are well qualified to train sales assistants in a generic way
on the various benefits of various vitamins. So far as the marketing
of our products is concerned, as I was saying to Mr Todd, the
thrust of our marketing is behind the brand and the training we
do is a support service to retailers that we offer on a regular
basis.
115. But on the basis that one of your major
lines is going to be giving the vitamin B6 food supplement to
women, is there not evidence that you are saying, "This is
the range of products that we have, but this is a super-dooper
big seller, it is called vitamin B6 and all the women are trying
to get this"? Are you encouraging people when they are coming
in for a variety of reasons to actually pursue that?
(Mr Bush) I would say that it is certainly not one
of our major lines.
(Mr Hanssen) The big market is products containing
B6 at the high levels, not products that are single B6 products.
116. So we are talking about a range of products,
some of which are containing it. Okay. I am a little concerned
about your statement which says that with the government's proposal
that it becomes a statutory instrument 11-49 mg would be obtained
from a pharmacist. In my rural area people rely very heavily and
value the advice that they get from their community pharmacist.
They are people that they have confidence in. You are giving the
picture that you feel that people would not be going to their
pharmacists because women might feel slightly ill at ease about
asking the young pharmacist about this particular issue or that
they do not go to the pharmacist at all to ask for advice. Have
you done any work with pharmacists because in lots of food pharmacies
health food supplements are sold side by side with patent medicines?
(Mr Bush) That is true and you will find that right
across the OTC medicine category, there is a range of levels of
advice. If someone has a cough they will go to the pharmacist
and ask because it is important whether it is a dry cough or any
other sort of cough, whether they are on medication. The point
I am making here is this is a food supplement. Whilst we say that
it may be good for pharmacists, what happens to all the reputable
retailers in the health food trade and also in the supermarkets
or wherever, why should they be deprived of a safe food supplement?
That is also an issue.
117. What percentage of your retailing outlets
are through ordinary supermarkets and general food stores rather
than health food stores?
(Mr Bush) If we talk about the whole market and not
just about my particular company, in the whole market about 26
per cent of food supplements go through supermarkets and about
15 to 20 per cent go through health food shops.
118. Do you give any advice to the large high
street supermarkets who are selling vitamin B6 in the same way
that you do to the retailers of health food stores about the products
that you have in your range?
(Mr Bush) The difference, of course, is that the supermarkets
do not have sales assistants in the same way as a health food
shop or a pharmacist. The industry has regular dialogues with
the supermarkets who are very keen to ensure that the right sort
of education is given to their consumers.
119. It is a mixed bag of advice and support
depending on the outlets, whether it is pharmacists, supermarkets
or health food stores?
(Mr Bush) It does change because of the nature of
the retail outlets, yes.
(Mr Hanssen) In retail outlets, for example, there
is a Health Stores Diploma Training Course which a lot of them
go on. They get knowledge there. There is an awful lot of in-house
training early in the morning and that sort of thing to try and
prevent inappropriate selling.
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