Dossiers submitted to Agency on safety of food supplements
Tuesday 12 July 2005
The Food Standards Agency has received more than 500 dossiers from the supplements industry providing information on vitamins and minerals to enable the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) to make safety assessments.
On receipt of the dossiers, the Agency is allowing products containing these substances to remain on sale pending their assessment by EFSA.
EFSA will consider these dossiers in due course and may require further information.
This process could last up until 2009. Well known supplements on the list include selenium-enriched yeast, tin, manganese and vitamin K2.
The products containing these substances will only be removed from sale in the UK during this process if there are reported adverse reactions or EFSA require the product be withdrawn following their safety assessment.
With more than 500 dossiers having been submitted to the Agency by today�s deadline, the great majority of food supplements people take will continue to be freely available to UK consumers.
Update 23 August 2005
This list was updated on 23 August 2005 after the European Commission informed the Agency that some of the substances fell outside the scope of this part of the food Supplements Directive because they are not a vitamin or mineral substance. We have contacted the relevant companies to inform them of this.
A number of other substances have also been removed because they are already on the positive list in the Food Supplements Directive. This means that they can continue to be sold throughout the European Union.
Thirdly, some of the substances were submitted by more than one applicant that we have consolidated the list for ease of reference.