The emails, which the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration (DVFA) and Danish Medicines Agency (DMA), said entered the inboxes of thousands of Danes contained messages such as "EU will ban natural vitamins" and "In the future, you can only buy your vitamins at the pharmacy”.
“It is worrying that some people actively disseminate false information, thereby setting off a scare campaign,” said DMA chief executive officer, Jytte Lyngvig.
Many of the messages arrived from anonymous sources but encouraged recipients to sign a petition protesting certain EU food policies and legislation such as the Food Supplements Directive (FSD) and the nutrition and health claims regulation.
Their content had found its way onto Danish newspaper websites as well as other blogs.
“The chain mails claim that the EU is presently implementing legislation, implying that all natural vitamins and minerals can only be bought on prescription at a pharmacy and that many natural vitamins and minerals will be banned,” the DMA wrote.
The emails go on to suggest that health food stores in Denmark will only be able to offer food supplements at low doses and in synthetic forms in the near future.
Both the DVFA and the DMA said they “did not recognise” the information contained in the chain emails.
DVFA deputy head of nutrition, Jens Therkel Jensen, said the scare campaign was “pulled out of thin air” as there was no movement to make vitamins available only under prescription in pharmacies.
He said the DVFA “would know if such legislation was on its way” and rejected the assertion “point blank”.
The DMA said the petition advertised within the emails claimed to have collected nearly 500,000 signatures.
Denmark has one of the strictest ingredients regimes in Europe. Companies seeking to incorporate nutritional ingredients into foods and beverages there often have to show due cause that far exceeds that of other countries.
The Danish approach is viewed by many as being very traditional in that policy is centred on the idea that one should be able to attain one’s nutrients from a regular diet of whole foods without resorting to fortified foods or food supplements.