A Swiss pro-health association - ProGesundheitSchweiz - has started an initiative to collect signatures for a citizens' legislative proposal to promote free access to food supplements. The signature-collection has taken off officially on 27 April 2004 and will run for 18 months. The aim is to collect at least 100,000 signatures of Swiss citizens within that time and if successful, the Swiss parliament will have to deal with the issue and put the proposal - possibly with a parliamentary counter-proposal - up for the Swiss to vote on in a direct vote referendum.

In Switzerland, food supplements are very much restricted in dosage, as in some other countries of Europe. Although the European Union has passed a directive that may eventually allow higher dose supplements on the market, Switzerland is not affected as it is not a European Union member. That is the reason for a separate initiative, which asks for a constitutional amendment to allow free commerce of health supplements, even if they exceed RDA dosages.

The proposed constitutional amendment is an article that would allow food supplements containing vitamins, minerals, aminoacids and other nutritional ingredients to be freely produced, promoted and sold in the Alpine nation.

2008: Unfortunally the Information in German, French and Italian, can't be found anymore.

E-mail enquiries: fredy.henrich@bluewin.ch