The Irish Association of Health Stores (IAHS) has warned that 5,000 vitamins and supplements currently on sale in Ireland will have to be withdrawn following a European Court ruling.
Two appeals lodged against new a European Union directive restricting the sale of vitamins and mineral supplements to a list of authorised products were rejected today.
The IAHS argues that up to 80 per cent of all available vitamin and mineral products, "which have been used safely for many years", will now be banned.
From August 1 st, all dietary supplements not on the approved list will be barred from sale in the EU. However, any products that were on the market before July 2002 will enjoy a four-year extension unless the EU food safety agency has rejected them.
The appeals - lodged by the British Alliance for Natural Health (ANH) and a group of UK retailers - were rejected today by the European Court of Justice, which ruled that the EU was right to restrict the trade in food supplements on public health grounds.
"The court pointed out that certain restrictions can be justified by the protection of public health and considered the measures in question to be necessary and appropriate for the purpose of achieving that objective," an ECJ statement said.
The ruling went against the opinion of the court's top legal adviser who had backed makers of natural vitamins, excluded from the list, in arguing that the legislation was deficient.
It was a victory for big manufacturers of synthetic vitamins such as German chemicals giants BASF and Bayer and Dutch chemicals group DSM NV, the world's biggest vitamin maker, because it cements their market positions.