The Italian government has recently passed a legislative decree, which is intended to implement the European Food Supplements Directive in Italy. The decree was approved by the conference of government ministers on 21 May 2004 and will be published in the official gazette without having to go to Parliament for approval.
While the decree follows the directive closely in matters of labelling prescriptions, it differs from the directive on the subject of dosage limits. In fact, the decree states in article 5 that
"... while waiting for specific community dispositions, the permissible amounts of vitamins, minerals and other substances are defined in the guidelines regarding food supplements published by the Ministry of health."
These guidelines limit the permissible amounts of vitamins and minerals to levels between 30% and 150% of the reference values (European labelling RDAs).
This seems to clearly contradict the spirit, if not the letter, of the European Food Supplements directive, which specifies that maximum levels of vitamins shall be set by the EU Commission and the member states with reference to scientifically established upper safe levels, taking into account intake from other sources (foods, fortified foods) as well as from supplements.
It also contradicts a recent decision by the European Court of Justice against Germany, Finland and Denmark, which determined a general limit for vitamin dosages of 3 times RDA as adopted by the German authorities to be illegitimate.
Kind regards
Josef
Link to the decree (in Italian)
Link to the Ministry of health guidelines (in Italian)
Link to the recent decision of the EU Court of Justice against G
ermany (in English)
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