Hungary launches new national nutritional safety vigilance website [Advocacy Lab Content]

Hungary has launched a new nutritional vigilance website to tackle poor data transparency for dietary supplement side effects. An expanding market and misleading advertising have increased consumer risks, which the site now seeks to counter.

Nutrivigilance is a complex system for data collection, analysis, evaluation documentation and information monitoring of adverse effects associated with the use of dietary supplements, functional foods, and other nutraceuticals. In Hungary, detecting, monitoring, or reporting adverse events has not been well regulated.

New initiative to fill the gap

“In the last twenty years, there has been no systematic data collection regarding the side effects of dietary supplements,” said Dr Dezső Csupor Associate Professor of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of Szeged, Faculty of Pharmacy.

Csupor drew a comparison with the constant testing for side effects that medicines undergo, even post-marketing. Following the example of France, some EU countries have implemented their own national dietary supplement adverse effects reporting systems.

Csupor strongly believes pharmacists could help promote the website so that more people can report any side effects they experience with any dietary supplement.

He highlighted the necessity of introducing nutrivigilance as a habitual practice due to the increase in dietary supplement consumption and the possible risks to people’s health.

Various side effects and adverse events may occur during the use of supplements due to sensitivity, quality problems, composition, and the consumption of many products at the same time, which could necessitate suspension of use. Consumers are largely forced to rely on sometimes controversial information to make decisions about product safety and potential benefits.

Additionally, despite the wide use of supplements, the population’s awareness of nutrivigilance remains inadequate, as many are not versed in the function of dietary supplements and tend to confuse them with pharmaceuticals.

Misleading advertisements can also contribute to the lack of information. So, any activities relating to the detection, assessment, understanding, and prevention of adverse from a dietary supplement or medical food are of vital interest.

Information to the distributor companies

The use of the online interface is completely anonymous. Reports received through the portal are analysed by experts, the analysis and evaluation help identify potential problems, and the analysis can serve as a basis for targeted quality checks or, if justified, even for modifying the composition of supplements. Ultimately, the process makes products safer.

A legislative amendment related to the distribution of dietary supplements is to be completed this year.

“It can completely reorganise the market as it would also stipulate that above a certain active ingredient content, certain products can only be sold in pharmacies and herbal medicine shops,” said Ferenc János Szabó, President of the Association of Organic and Medicinal Plant Traders ( Bigyox).

On 14 March during a meeting of the presidency of the Chamber of Pharmacy, Csupor presented the new online interface for consumers and healthcare professionals, launched in cooperation with the Hungarian Association of Dietary Supplement Manufacturers and Distributors (MÉKISZ), the Institute of Clinical Pharmacy of the University of Szeged (SZTE) and Semmelweis University (SE).

“Today is not a red-letter day, but it is a big date for us: the website nutrivigilancia.hu has been launched, and this is a significant step in the safe use of dietary supplements,” Csupor stressed during his presentation.

Csupor explained that dietary supplements fall under multiple categories, and may contain vitamins, trace elements, minerals and other ingredients with a nutritional or physiological effect in a concentrated form. The Hungarian market has been expanding dynamically, with regular consumption by the majority of the population.

[By Zsolt Kopári, Edited by Vasiliki Angouridi, Brian Maguire | Euractiv’s Advocacy Lab]

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