BETWEEN foods and drugs is a twilight zone that is guaranteed to cause trouble, especially for governments. Under the catch-all heading “food supplements”, lies a vast array of substances: from vitamins and minerals through to tonics such as ginseng, preventatives such as echinacea and cod liver oil, to potent herbs such as St John’s wort.
It is, it seems, a God-given right for anyone to consume any of these substances without hindrance from doctors or government regulators. Indeed, over the past decade, as the cost of – and disillusionment with – conventional medicines has grown, consumers have turned more and…
