09/09/2026
TO ALL OUR CURRENT AND PAST PATIENTS....please consider signing this petition
https://c.org/9tY2XYjQBn
Some of our herbs are at risk and this may well affect our ability to prescribe in the future - here are some details....
The EU is in the process of setting new rules for food supplements — rules the UK has already committed to following. Those rules include:
- Capping Vitamin D at 800 IU. Your skin produces twelve times that in one afternoon in summer sunshine.
- Capping Vitamin B6 at 12.5mg. The World Health Organisation's own upper limit is 100mg.
- Restricting or banning 13 herbal ingredients including ashwagandha, St John's Wort, curcumin (from turmeric), berberine, black cohosh, tribulus, and piperine.
- Restricting medicinal mushrooms as novel foods. We have already lost cordyceps and turkey tail as over-the-counter supplements. The MHRA and FSA restricted them after the EU classified them — exactly the pattern that will now repeat for herbs and vitamins.
The EU consultation that will shape these rules closes this autumn. Once it closes, the text is drafted. Once the legislation passes, the UK aligns with it. The supplements you buy freely right now become unavailable, reformulated to doses too low to help anyone, or restricted to prescription only.
In Europe, medical herbalists cannot legally diagnose patients or prescribe herbal treatments. When the EU removes a botanical from the market, that is the end of the road for European patients — there is no clinical route back.
In the United Kingdom, licensed medical herbalists can still diagnose and dispense under Clause 241 of the Human Medicines Regulations 2012. It is one of the most important and least-known protections in our health system. If UK standards align with EU standards — if imports are tightened, if supply chains are harmonised, that protection is eroded quietly. No announcement. No vote. No debate. The supplements go first. The practitioner route follows.
Demand UK regain control over food supplements regulation
