There’s a story making the rounds on websites, some newspapers, and wire services like UPI saying that the EU has banned any statement (such as on bottled water) that “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration.”
We’ve been so accustomed to seeing stupidity from government lately, that this seemed plausible. But it isn’t.
Here’s a link link to the actual ruling:
There’s also a statement from EFSA clarifying the issue, they write:
Among those claims was a claim related to the role of water in the prevention of dehydration filed earlier this year by two German scientists. At the time, the claim had to be rejected by EFSA because it was filed under the wrong legal provision (Article 14 of Regulation 1924/2006/EC instead of Article 13). In short, Article 14 deals with diseases and illnesses whereas dehydration was not regarded by EFSA as a disease.
I’ve checked out these two pages and the rejection based on it being filed in the wrong context seems accurate. Thanks to Maurizio Morabito for pointing out the EFSA link.
A lot of people got taken in by the incorrect Newspaper and wire reports, and they continue to spread. Here’s Alec Rawls original story below.
Update: I’ve added Alec’s further comments below, claims and counterclaims leave this issue unresolved. – Anthony
Thanks to Anthony for including the EFSA response at the beginning of my post. Comparing the their “clarifications” with the actual ruling, however, I have to say that the Express reporting seems to be accurate, while the EFSA’s clarifications grossly misrepresent their ruling.
The clarification asserts that EFSA issued a pro-forma rejection of the proposed health claim on the grounds that dehydration is not recognized as a disease, leaving the implication that since no actual health claim was made, there would be no prohibition on making it. The ruling itself however, quite clearly does accept that dehydration IS a disease. Their actual grounds for rejecting the proposed claim was a bizarre assessment that the claim does not address a risk factor for the disease, but only a measure of the disease, and hence is not a valid claim about reduction of a risk factor.
This is incredibly stupid. Failure to drink enough water is not a risk factor for dehydration? Just to try to make this distinction is nonsensical enough, but then they get it wrong to boot, on the most trivially simple matter: can drinking water help prevent dehydration? Here are the key parts of the ruling:(1) Pursuant to Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 health claims made on foods are prohibited unless they are authorised by the Commission in accordance with that Regulation and included in a list of permitted claims.
(6) … the applicant proposed water loss in tissues or reduced water content in tissues as risk factors of dehydration. On the basis of the data presented, the Authority concluded in its opinion received by the Commission and the Member States on 16 February 2011 that the proposed risk factors are measures of water depletion and thus are measures of the disease. Accordingly, as a risk factor in the development of a disease is not shown to be reduced, the claim does not comply with the requirements of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 and it should not be authorised.
They do declare the claim unauthorized, meaning disallowed, which would not be the case if they had ruled that it was not actually a health claim. So everything in the clarification is just a fraud. It seems they got embarassed when people noticed how stupid their ruling was and concocted a completely dishonest excuse.
Saturday not-so-funny: Europeans can now be imprisoned (2 yrs!) for claiming that water protects against dehydration
Guest post by Alec Rawls
“It took the 21 scientists on the panel three years of analysis into the link between water and dehydration to come to their extraordinary conclusion,” reports the UK Express. To be precise, the European Union has barred vendors from claiming that “regular consumption of significant amounts of water can reduce the risk of development of dehydration.” Apparently there are some skeptics:
Perhaps a dictionary would have helped. Dehydration, from “hydor,” the Greek word for water, means to lose water, or suffer water deprivation.
“The euro is burning, the EU is falling apart and yet here they are, highly paid, highly pensioned officials trying to deny us the right to say what is patently true,” says Conservative MEP Roger Helmer.
Wait a minute. How does an anti-science flat-earther like Helmer rate mainstream ink? Leave science to the scientists!
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Beast of traal:
The ruling does, indeed, accept dehydration as a disease.
The EU commission is right. Some German scientists are trying to stampede ignorant consumers into treating a bogus dehydration illness with excessive water consumption. If you allow this to go through, you can advertise that 3 litres of water a day prevents some hypothetical, bogus “dehydration”. Better yet, don’t specify; just encourage people to drink more of your brand of water… because company X cares about your health. 😉 You can see how this bogus claim might allow a company to stampede people into buying more water. It’s pure alarmism. The commission blocked this sort of claim.
Some of you might remember the bogus “tired blood” which could supposedly be treated by Geritol vitamins. HINT: Geritol lost a court case in the US and had to cease & desist. Also in the US, you have Activia brand yogurt promoting the idea that consuming their yogurt leads to uniformly better intestinal health (an unsupportable claim). Eventually, they’re going to be forced to stop making these claims.
The people who are complaining against this ruling, and that includes Anthony Watts unfortuantely, can’t figure out what the commission was doing. If you parse the language from section (5), “Regular consumption of significant amounts of water” is the recommended treatment. This is obviously leading to an alarmist ‘you don’t have enough water in your system’ claim. When the commission says to the claimants, “please clarify”, the claimants come back in (6) and try the old “reduced water content in tissues” argument. Seriously, Chap-stik also treats reduced water content is tissue and exercise *produces* reduced water content in tissues. Is exercise a risk factor for this disease? The issue isn’t whether water consumption regulates fluid content of tissues, but whether “regular water consumption of significant amounts” does. I say, based on my understanding of physiology, that “significant amounts” of water are unnecessary for most people.
Now, the EFSA responders are the evil EU bureaucrats you’re looking for. They didn’t understand the ruling themselves and tried to deflect criticism with a smokescreen.
For a website that opposes climate alarmism, you guys need to do a better job recognizing alarmism in other fields.
“For a website that opposes climate alarmism, you guys need to do a better job recognizing alarmism in other fields.”
Scepticism is a habit of the mind and it is noticeable that in so many articles here there is a distinct lack of that habit. Aside from this thread (based on a by-the-book EU scare story) there was the also recent Google-story, in which a supposed conspiracy by Google against WUWT was fluffed up based on little but hot air. In another thread few people checked on what Singer was saying about BEST now, with what he said about BEST initially – and to top we’ve the current brilliant argument against climate science: some climatologists have big beards!
WUWT is charging full-speed towards a future where it is, at best, a sort of ‘American Thinker’-lite. Shame, as one upon a time it was interesting even when it was wrong.
JDN says:
“There are some conditions where water will not protect against dehydration, either because it cannot be absorbed fast enough or because the water is eliminated too quickly. In those cases, intravenous saline solution is required.”
And what is the main ingredient of that solution?
@tty
Ya got me, it’s water…. However, ‘drinking water’ is food & ‘intravenous water’ is medicine. This ruling concerned claims by food producers. And it was a claim that would allow water manufacturers to start a health scare about your health being negatively affected if you don’t drink enough water. Thus, I think they did the right thing. I also think that it has subsequently been misinterpreted. But, they might reverse themselves just to look like good guys. Who knows? Their initial explanation for the decision was horrible.
i get some considerable amusement when I read some of comments that claim Anthony Watts is wrong in posting such and such an article and wrong in his interpretation he gives in that post and that he should change his post in such a way so to as reflect the beliefs of his accuser.
Disagree by all means and state that but to claim that Anthony should not be running such and such a post and that he should change it, with the not so well hidden assumption that he should change the post to reflect his accuser’s beliefs, is merely a demand that indicates a deal of self important arrogance on the accuser’s part.
Go and start your own blogs if you so strongly disagree with Anthony and believe he is wrong in the interpretation he puts on posts and then see how much traffic you get with your own undoubted and correct interpretation of events and EU dictates.
JDN says:
November 20, 2011 at 9:56 am
The EU commission is right. Some German scientists are trying to stampede ignorant consumers into treating a bogus dehydration illness with excessive water consumption. If you allow this to go through, you can advertise that 3 litres of water a day prevents some hypothetical, bogus “dehydration”. Better yet, don’t specify; just encourage people to drink more of your brand of water… because company X cares about your health. 😉 You can see how this bogus claim might allow a company to stampede people into buying more water. It’s pure alarmism. The commission blocked this sort of claim……
_______________________________________
First straight from our GOVERNMENT – USDA
Consumers – Water and Fluid needs: http://fnic.nal.usda.gov/nal_display/index.php?info_center=4&tax_level=3&tax_subject=358&topic_id=1611&level3_id=5982&level4_id=0&level5_id=0&placement_default=0
It lists several articles.
Here is the first article:
To me this is the critical point:
Over the course of a few hours, body water deficits can occur. However, thirst mechanisms come into play over the ensuing 24 hours to trigger replacement of fluids lost (Johnson, 1964)
And that is why those of us in the USA especially in the south, are having problems with this ruling. Heck everyone I know carries extra water in their vehicles most of the year.
Further more I drink 2 to 4 liters EXTRA or more if I am working outside on a hot day. I literally have to force myself to drink that much and I still lose two to three pounds or more. (2% or so of my body weight) If I wait the “24 hours to trigger replacement of fluids lost” I am going to get darn sick as I have done when I am not careful about consuming enough water.
In my state it is traditional (and there may be a law too) to supply large water coolers for farm and construction labor. You see the big orange coolers fixed to the side of pickup trucks all over the state. http://www.trailerracks.com/images/products/XE106_5.jpg
Salt is not a problem anymore in the USA because everything has too blasted much salt in it to begin with.
the beast of traal says:
“Smokey… I’m sure you are blinkered enough to believe that 18 months of intense investigation ensued from the stupid request. It probably caused a couple of minutes laughing before the next submission was considered.”
I simply posted two links from different sources, with no commentary whatever. Readers benefit from seeing different points of view, no? So go argue with the folks who wrote the articles I linked to, if it means so much to you.
And sorry, I didn’t read the link you posted. This is your ox being gored, not mine. If you want to defend unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats who want to rule every aspect of your existence, go right ahead.
Actually one poster is right. Recently there was something on TV in a CA program, about people dieing and getting sick on the trek along the PNG track, that is famous during the last war, when the locals helped Australian troops escape from the Japanese. Seems they were drinking too much water in the increased heat and humidity. But I can’t remember exactly what caused it?
Anyone remember from Oz? I might look on the net.
I’m actually quite suprised that certain types of fruit have yet to be banned by the EU. After all, there is no scientific evidence whatsoever that an apple a day keeps the doctor away. And no matter how many I consumed as a child, carrots did not reduce the necessity to use a flashlight in the dark.
I’m not sure if they understand the concept of dehydration itself. If you don’t hydrate (ie:drink), you die. Death is a significant and potentially incurable condition (science is not settled, future developments etc). Dehydration is a symptom that is avoidable by guess what EU scientists, hydrating. 85% of our brain is made up of water, I guess it’s considerably less for EU boffins.
Were the 21 scientists involved in suppressing the bleeding obvious also involved in AGW “research” and members of the WWF?
Just askin’.
DDP, I do agree with you (I love the comment about Death and the science is not settled, future developments, etc). But now the Duke of Edinburgh has stated that windmills are useless, and with the announcement 14,000 lay idle in the USA including Hawaii, I suspect his ideology will be put down as senile dementia, after all he is 90.
@Gail Combs
I think your proposal is different from what was submitted to the commission. You are proposing that drinking water, not “regularly” as the German professors proposed, but when it is hot and/or you are performing vigorous activity will prevent actual & expected dehydration, not some hypothetical dehydration. I don’t believe the EU ruling covers what you are saying. Maybe I should ask them if it does?
@ROM
You may want to look up arrogance. Who are you to tell me I can’t post here if I disagree with Anthony? I’m contributing to this discussion by telling him he’s read the ruling incorrectly and that he should be more careful. I think he takes pride in the fact that people are free to disagree with him.
JDN says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:25 pm
@Gail Combs
I think your proposal is different from what was submitted to the commission. You are proposing that drinking water, not “regularly” as the German professors proposed, but when it is hot and/or you are performing vigorous activity will prevent actual & expected dehydration, not some hypothetical dehydration. I don’t believe the EU ruling covers what you are saying. Maybe I should ask them if it does?
____________________________________
You are still looking at a minimum fluid consumption to keep your kidneys/bladder happy and prevent kidney stones. Sweet tea is a favorite beverage in the US south and substituting too much tea for water is thought to promote kidney stones. (My vet when I offered tea or water)
Mayo Clinic
Cleveland Clinic
Again those who live in the southern states of the USA are potentially more aware of this because we are “More at Risk”
Dr. Green: In the United States the south is considered a stone belt due to the increased temperature and humidity and resultant dehydration state. http://www.urologyinstitute.com/html/kidney_stones.html
And yes, like everything else too much water is very bad for you. Some idiot women in Florida, trying to treat cancer I think, killed her self by drinking to much distilled water (very pure) She really screwed up her electrolyte balance. NaCl & KCl are also important in a hot clime.
However I certainly see nothing wrong with the old USDA recommendation of 4 glasses of water a day (about a liter to a liter and a half) I certainly wish parents would give their kids water instead of soda here in the USA . Maybe then we would not have the diabetes/obesity problem we now have.
There is a practical way to test the EU’s hypothesis–remove all aid tables from endurance related sporting events and ban athletes from ingesting any liquids–especially water. Then calculate the data–some of which will be in body bags.
NyqOnly says:
November 20, 2011 at 10:48 am
“WUWT is charging full-speed towards a future where it is, at best, a sort of ‘American Thinker’-lite. Shame, as one upon a time it was interesting even when it was wrong.”
says a concern troll who has been commenting here for two and a half days.
It’s getting to the point where even Mad Magazine could not come up with anything more crazy and stupid!!!
What next, the EU suggests that people drink water made from non-polarized molecules. ;-))
Poached from a commenter elsewhere: