Accident waiting to happen

A little while ago, I wrote this post as sort of stream of conciousness rant against British drivers. From my perspective as a motorbike rider, I was commenting about all the things that annoyed or even scared me about modern driving standards.

During the course of that post, I made some comments that were directed at bikers (hey, why should we be left out - we drive badly too). One correspondent made a comment about my anti-biker stance, and I explained that I’m not anti-biker, just anti dumbass biker.

This story (and the accompanying footage) gives a perfect illustration of what I mean; here’s two guys out their sportsbikes who see nothing wrong with weaving in and out of the traffic on a dual-carriageway. OK, not all of their over-takes are dangerous - but there’s enough that are to scare the hell out of me. Especially when they decide they’re going to use the shoulder of the road instead of the actual carriageway.

Both of these riders have now been disqualified for at least a year and will have to re-take their tests, but one of them has proudly stated that “When I get my licence back I will go out and buy another sports bike and pretty much go out and do exactly the same thing again.”

I love my motorbike and I like to ride it fast, as these guys were doing, but what I don’t want to do is put my life - and the lives of others - at risk, which is what these guys were also doing. Looking at the footage, I’d be surprised if 50% of the drivers they passed knew what was happening until it was over - do you really want to be riding with those sort of odds? What if one of the cars braked unexpectedly?

It is unfortunate that bikers who ride recklessly very rarely learn their lesson, as the one time something happens is the time it kills them. These two guys have a chance to re-think the way they ride. Let’s hope for their sakes they do.

The Machine Stops

I’m beginning to think that the machines are out to get me.

Its been one of those days, you know? Every machine that I’ve had to use today has not worked in the way that it should. The PC locks up, the paper jams in the printer, the packing machinery doesn’t pack. And now I’m sitting here writing this on another machine, which keeps slowing down for no good reason.

It has made me wonder about our reliance on machines throughout our daily lives, reminding me of an EM Forster short story, The Machine Stops. In this story, based sometime in the future, everything is controlled by The Machine and everyone lives in little cells, with everything provided to them. Then, The Machine starts to break down and suddenly no-one knows what to do…

We’re not heading that way.

Are we?

Vitamin and mineral users: protect your rights

If you live in the UK and if you are concerned enough about your health to use nutritional supplements - particularly vitamins and minerals, but also herbals and other nutrients - then you’ve probably heard about the EU Food Supplements Directive (2002/46/EC) that came into UK law back in 2005.

This Directive, which currently covers only vitamins and minerals but which is believed to be a framework for much wider legislation to come, has two main parts:

Part one defines (by the use of Positive Lists) the vitamins and minerals that may be used in nutritional supplement products. It also defines the forms of those vitamins and minerals that are permissible.

This arrangement has left many widely used and popular vitamin and mineral forms out in the cold. Perhaps the best example of this is with Selenium. This is an antioxidant mineral that is needed for many different body functions; the most popular form in supplements is the more natural selenomethionine but this is not on the Positive List. Instead you have to settle for the more artificial sodium selenite which can actually be used as a poison.

There is a process that allows submission of dossiers of information, to apply to have an ingredient added to the Positive Lists. Currently, there are about 500 dossiers submitted from the UK being evaluated by the European Food Safety Agency.

Part one came into UK law on 1 August 2005. So far, because of the derogation granted to any ingredient which has had a dossier submitted but not had a decision yet, nothing has really changed in the UK market. But derogation ends in December 2009.

The second part of the Directive is the part that could really restrict consumer choice. This part of the Directive seeks to set maximum permitted levels for all ingredients on the Positive Lists.

Let’s take vitamin C as an example. The vitamin that everyone knows about - you take it when you’ve got a cold (that’s because it’s an immune system booster), sailors used to eat oranges to avoid scurvy (scurvy is caused by a vitamin C deficiency). Many supplement products contain 500mg or 1,000mg of vitamin C per tablet; many supplement users take several tablets a day. Linus Pauling, who for many years was a great advocate of vitamin C supplementation, used to take upwards of 20,000mg a day and lived healthily to a ripe old age.

But the EU-sanctioned RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) for vitamin C is just 60mg - hardly enough to even notice. The RDA is supposed to be the minimum amount required to prevent a deficiency in the particular nutrient - but what about trying to promote optimal health? What about the fact that if you smoke you use up more than 60mg with each cigarette?

And it’s the EU RDA’s that are likely to be used as the basis for the maximum permitted levels, which are going to be set over the coming months, unless something is done.

There is a framework in place - agreed between the supplements industry and the Food Standards Agency (one of the government bodies, along with the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency - MHRA, and Trading Standards, that police the supplements industry) - that allows for high-potency supplements to remain on sale, even in the light of this Directive. It involves the use of label statements that highlight possible adverse effects of consuming too much of the nutrient.

This framework allows for a much more flexible relationship between what is already a highly regulated industry and the Government, whilst also protecting consumer choice and safety. The EU system of maximum permitted levels will not do so.

So, help protect your rights as a supplement consumer. Sign the e-petition at http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/uksaysnotofsd/, get all your friends and family to sign it, also sign the Consumers for Health Choice petition at http://www.consumersforhealthchoice.com/phpPETITION/, or in your local health food store, and write to your local MP* and tell him or her your views on the directive and what you want them to do to protect your freedom of choice.

Together, we can win this!

*If you don’t know who your local MP is, you can find out by using this locator.