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Mr. Todd: Indeed; I share exactly that concern. I have also been contacted by health food proprietors near my constituency; as my constituency is not blessed with one of those shops, people have to go to Derby to buy the products. They are concerned about precisely those points, so I recognise the point that the hon. Gentleman makes.
An individual would only have to complain and say, "Yes, I believe it is a medicine," for the MCA to be involved in the process. There is no review of any MCA judgment in which the industry or other consumers might be involved.
As the MCA is likely to be reactive to individual contacts, its involvement will be incoherent. A comment will be made about an individual product, the MCA will make a judgment on whether it is a medicine, and then apply the necessary regulatory framework to it if that be so. Essentially similar products may be treated differently. That is why the Government wisely referred the issue of B6 to the expert group to provide a coherent framework within which decisions might be made.
That takes us to the second possible reason for intervention. On the B6 study, did taking B6 actually help anyone? The evidence on that was inconclusive. I am not a scientist or a consumer of the products, so I have no way of making a personal judgment on the matter. One could go only by the number of people who claimed positive effects. There are many reasons why someone might claim a positive effect for consuming a particular product. We are all reasonably well aware of the fact that consumption of particular items may make people feel good, but may not have any medical or physiological impact at all, although they feel better for having taken it.
Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire):
The hon. Gentleman plays a distinguished part in the Select Committee on Agriculture. I thank him for his contribution. Does he recall that two members of the Select Committee claimed benefit from such products?
Mr. Todd:
I thank the hon. Gentleman for his compliments. Indeed, one member of the Select Committee did a trial run on B6, taking it in measures that were in excess of those suggested by the Government. She then consulted her family and they all said that she seemed much the better for it. I personally think that she is very nice just as she is now, but that was just one individual's subjective judgment.
Dr. Jenny Tonge (Richmond Park):
I am horrified by that exchange. The medical profession would say that a double-blind, crossover trial must take place on any substance before we draw any conclusions. I would hate anyone to go away with the impression that one person feeling a bit better according to her family after taking something should be the basis for a judgment.
Mr. Todd:
I take the hon. Lady's comment. In a way, it exposes exactly the point that I am making, which is
Mr. Todd:
Or against. Therefore, people could simply make their own judgment. That is what hundreds of thousands of people did.
We heard no complaints. We were assured by the industry that it was careful not to attribute powers to the product that were not demonstrable. However, one cannot stop other people--in magazine articles, for example--suggesting the use of a product to deal with a particular problem. That often happens in the sector. People read a piece in a magazine that says that consuming a few more vitamins of a particular sort will do them a lot of good, and they go into a health shop and buy them. Perhaps the product does make them feel better--although we do not know whether they feel better because of the product. However, quite often, endorsement and marketing of products are effected by such informal means.
One cannot stop informal advertising. Moreover, we already have laws against misleading advertising. The MCA has also recently sought powers to control advertising claims for licensed medical products. There is an argument that such controls exist already. However, I am prepared to accept the view that there may be abuses that are best dealt with by the MCA. There is already such a proposal in an earlier MCA regulation that has not yet received parliamentary approval. However, that is not my specific concern today. The MCA would be applying the rules on advertising within the licensed sector, on products that have been licensed as a medicine--not the products that we are discussing today, unless the MCA chose to classify them as medicines through the process that I described earlier.
There is a third strand of regulatory activity, at European Union level. Since 1991, the European Commission has sought harmonisation of regulations for the sector. So far, the United Kingdom Government have rightly said that any regulation should be based on safety rather than need. Therefore, using the distinction that I drew earlier, the UK Government maintain that it should be a matter of whether a product is harmful, not whether it is demonstrably good for people. Although that is the correct view to take, it is not exactly the view that is taken in all other European countries--which is why the issue has been batted around for quite some time already.
The issue of efficacy should not be the determining factor in deciding EU regulation. However, the MCA's proposed involvement in the matter may make efficacy precisely the determining factor. Surely one should argue that there is inconsistency in the Government's approach to the matter. I believe that, provided manufacturers or marketers of the products make no medical claims for them, consumers should be left to make their own judgments.
The issue of dietary supplements evokes strong passion. Since becoming involved in it, I have discovered that people write extremely passionate letters on the benefits of the products that they have been consuming, and that, when they get on the telephone, they tell one about the products at considerable length.
One person told me: "Do not prevent us from taking responsibility for our own health." There is a broader philosophical issue--which we could debate at much greater length--on the balance between reliance on the medical profession to tell us about our health and reliance on individuals to make their own judgments on how they themselves should manage their own health. The person who told me that individuals should assume responsibility for their own health made an important and profound point. Individuals should own the issue of their own health--on which they, too, should make some judgments.
Furthermore, I do not think that it benefits the United Kingdom medical profession to regard itself as the sole arbiter of how health should be provided to individual citizens. Going down that route will lead only to overload and a complete lack of individual responsibility for what one consumes and how one lives one's life--all of which are much more critical factors in determining good health than whether one regularly visits the doctor.
Dr. Tonge:
Does the hon. Gentleman agree that, recently, the Government have shown some inconsistency on those issues? We are not allowed, for example, to make judgments for ourselves on beef on the bone. We have absolutely no chance of making a judgment on genetically modified foods, as substances that have been genetically modified are already in the food chain. Does he agree that the Government have to get their act together and decide just where they will stand on the issues?
Mr. Todd:
The hon. Lady is dragging a very large red herring right across a debate that could engage us for quite some time. However, I should briefly deal with the two points, which deserve a quick response.
On the beef on the bone ban, I should say--for the benefit of Conservative Members who do not know me so well--that I am not by instinct a regulator, but have always taken the view that individual citizens should make judgments for themselves. Therefore, I took some persuading that the Government's action on beef on the bone was the correct course to take. However, the main persuader in the issue was the overriding objective of lifting the beef ban. A critical factor in attaining that objective was the Government's stance on bovine spongiform encephalopathy and on the possibility of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease among human beings.
The need to deal with the critical factor of credibility led me to believe that the beef on the bone ban was necessary, to ensure that our European partners--with whom we were, and still are, negotiating to lift the ban--were persuaded of the seriousness of our intent. That was the justification for the ban.
On genetically modified foods, I take the view that the Government are very seriously engaged in ensuring that consumers have, by means of proper labelling, proper information on what they are purchasing. We are operating on that issue within an EU framework, in which we must try to persuade others of the validity of our point of view. Fortunately, we have greater sympathy within the EU on that matter than we would if we were negotiating with the Americans, who take a much more cavalier approach to the subject.
Certainly within the EU, we have been forcefully defending the position of providing greater information, both in labelling products themselves and in stating on
labels the fact that GM-derived ingredients may be involved--or the fact that enzymes have been used that are not left in the food ultimately, but that nevertheless have a GM link. Currently, all those elements are subject to Government action.
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