|
Germany
Bureaucracy vs. science
written by S. Stolzenburg
Since the eighties, scientific projects exist in Germany which
concentrate on the cultivation of stevia rebaudiana. They are financed
by subsidies of the European Union. The University of Hohenheim is the
centre of these research projects. The European Union assigned some
scientists of this university to examine the potentials of the
cultivation of stevia plants in Spain. Moreover, the confederation
funded different research projects conducted by Dr. Udo Kienle of the
faculty of agricultural sciences. Mister Kienle has engaged in stevia
research since the beginning of the eighties when he learned about the
plant by coincidence. More recently, he has tried to grow stevia plants
on a small field in southern Germany and has discovered that they thrive
and prosper very well under European climate conditions. To some
extent, he has managed to grow plants with a higher level of sweetness
as in comparable plants from Paraguay.1
After his success in southern Germany, Kienle tried to replicate his
experiments in southern Spain. He published the results of his
examinations in a comparative study.2
He came to the conclusion that the cultivation of stevia in Germany and
Spain requires almost no need to cut back in comparison to the
cultivation in Paraguay. In fact, there is the possibility, to some
extent, to reach better crop results.
From 1998 to 2002, a team of researchers led by Professor Thomas
Jungbluth (the dean of the faculty of agricultural sciences) and Doctor
Kienle conducted another project in southern Spain. It was also funded
by the European Union and it focussed on the acclimatisation of Stevia
rebaudiana for southern European areas. According to off-the-record
sources, the goal of the European Union was to create a cultivation
alternative for its tobacco farmers to save some of the high subsidies
they receive. The official results of the southern Spain study were shut
away by the European Union.3
While he worked on the research project, Doctor Kienle refined the
process of cultivation and subsequent treatment of the stevia plant so
that it became marketable with regard to cultivation techniques and in
procedural terms.4
Moreover, medical and biochemical researches on the stevia plant were
conducted in Germany. For example, in the mid-nineties a physician named
Johann Christian Huber tried to examine the influence of stevioside and
acesulfame K on the human body. Acesulfame K is a synthetic sweetener
which became legalized as the food additive E-50 in the European Union
in 1990. One main focus of the study was an examination on the impact of
stevia on the blood glucose level and the insulin level. The
examination showed that there is no influence of stevioside, stevia
extract or stevia tea on either of them.5
Although the European Union conducted many studies which formally proved
the innocuousness of stevia, the German department of risk assessment
(BfR) decided that Stevia rebaudiana has not been examined enough. In
April 2003, the functionaries wrote "according to act No. 258/97 (EG) on
novelty food and novelty food additives, we cannot approve the so far
filed applications on legalisation of stevioside as a food additive or
on marketing Stevia rebaudiana and components of that plant, since the
existing data is not sufficient to judge the innocuousness on human
health[...] Consequentially, neither the sweetener stevioside nor the
plant or components of the plant are to be legalised as food or food
additives in the European Union."6
With this decision, the department of risk assessment once again
prohibited the distribution of stevia as a food component. After the
Joint FAO/WHO Expert Committee on Food Additives (JECFA) defined an
acceptable daily intake (ADI) of steviol glycosides in the amount of up
to 2 milligrammes per kilogramme body weight7,
scientists all over Europe became euphoric. Hope was raised that the
European Union would follow the JECFA recommendation shortly.4
But the departments of the confederation still insisted that more
studies were needed. The European Union approved the use of stevia and
its components as a food additive for animal food in 2005.8
Furthermore, there was a stevia related lawsuit in Bavaria in 2004.
There, a sales woman sued the state for the prohibition of stevia sale
because she had already sold stevia tea before the Novelty Food Act came
into effect. She argued that her past sales were a reason stevia could
not be handled as a novelty food. The administration court of Bavaria
decided in her favour because she proved that she had already sold
significant amounts of stevia tea prior to 1997. The court explained
that this meant that "her food is no novelty food", so stevia could not
be affected by the Novelty Food Act.9 Later, the Free State of Bavaria appealed the decision.
|
|
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment