Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2013-02-06-Speech-3-196-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20130206.25.3-196-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:spoken text |
"Madam President, one of the most scandalous episodes I have lived through as a Member of the European Parliament was the banning and restriction of a number of higher-dose vitamin and mineral supplements and herbal remedies by their reclassification as pharmaceutical products. The justification was the precautionary principle, which is one of those ideas that sounds plausible but turns out to be specious.
In the 19
century it was widely believed that the noise of a passing train would cause miscarriages in pregnant women. Had we applied the precautionary principle we would not have laid a single inch of track, because the rail operators at that time could no more prove that they would not cause miscarriages than the herbalist can prove that her products are not deleterious to health. There is such a thing as ‘benefit of the doubt’. It is not a good business model to go around poisoning your customers and opening yourself to massive liabilities.
Of course the real reason that these restrictions were brought in was because a handful of massive pharmaceutical corporations which could easily afford the compliance costs saw it as an opportunity to put their smaller competitors out of business, which is exactly what has happened. Once again, we see that consumers, taxpayers and entrepreneurs are disadvantaged in favour of the handful of corporate interests which are the real beneficiaries of this system."@en1
|
| lpv:spokenAs | |
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata |
"th"1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples