More Bureaucrats

Bureaucrats force us to confuse consumers by changing the label at the top to the label at the bottom. Note the name of the product, changed from "Vitamin D3", which everyone knows and understands, to "Cholecalciferol" which no-one can even pronounce.

Our Prime Minister made a comment this week that was closer to the truth than anything ever uttered by any politician in this or any other election.

He was responding to criticism that his government had ignored the advice of departments in allocating grants in some regional development scheme. And he said this...

If governments were always going to follow the advice of the bureaucrats, then why are we bothering to have an election this weekend. The politicians should all just go home and the bureaucrats can run the country.

Um... they already do Johnny. Governments come and go, but the bureaucracy stays the same, with hands firmly on the tiller.

This week, a second front re-opened in my war on bureaucracy, or perhaps that should be "bureaucracy's war on me", because I don't start these fights, but it seems that whenever I'm confronted by rigid midless thinking, I just can't stop myself.

Please forgive what follows, because it's a boring rant that's unlikely to hold your attention to the end, but I need to get it off my chest so too bad.

We have a Vitamin D product. I won't go into the ins and outs of Vitamin D... just believe me when I say a) it's good for you, and b) you're probably not getting enough.

Vitamin D is sold the world over as Vitamin D3, and is usually measured in International Units.

We have a nice label for our Vitamin D. It's strong and clear. Buy our Vitamin D and you get what it says you get... no extravagant claims about curing exotic diseases, no ambiguous language... just Vitamin D.

This week, we received a ruling from the Therapeutic Goods Administration, a self perpetuating bureaucracy which places rigid adherance to rules above looking after the health of the citizens, a role for which is was specifically and expressly created.

We have to change the label. First, we're not allowed to call it Vitamin D any more. According to the rules, all supplements sold in Australia must be named according to the "Approved Name", which is usually the scientific name. We have to call Vitamin D "Cholecalciferol". If that was really what the regulations say (and we don't believe it is), then your garlic pills would be called "Allium Sativum", and your Vitamin C would be "Asorbic Acid" (or Calcium Ascorbate as the Ascorbic Acid actually has to be attached to something).

It's an idiotic regulation, and this Bear can't help but think it's specifically designed to confuse the crap out of consumers.

It gets worse though. We can't say ours is 1000 IU any more. We have to say it's 25 mcg (which is the same thing).

Ok. I can understand the desire to standardise, but here's the problem... if you walked into a store and saw our "Cholecalciferol 25mcg" next to our competitor's "Vitamin D 1000 IU", which one would you buy? That's because the regulations only get enforced if your product gets audited, which is about one in 5 products. The rest don't get audited, so they can say whatever they need to say so that the consumer understands what is being offered.

It's infuriating, and it got even worse than that. On our label, we said "Some sunscreens may interfere with your body's production of Vitamin D." That's self evident, because the UV rays the sunscreens are specifically designed to block are the same UV rays that make your body produce Vitamin D.

We didn't say why that's important. We didn't tell consumers about a increase in the overall cancer rate directly related to a drop in Vitamin D caused by people using too much sunscreen, and we didn't mention specific cancers like breast cancer, where women who get plenty of sun have a 50% lower change of getting it than women who avoid the sun or always use sunscreen. No. We didn't say any of those things. We just stated a fact... using sunscreen blocks Vitamin D production.

We were told we're not allowed to say that because "it encourages unsafe sun practices".

That's when my fuse blew. I told the TGA that the only unsafe sun practice is staying out of the sun, and if they persisted with forcing these changes to our label, then I will file a formal complaint each time a come across a competitor's product that doesn't "conform", such that they will be so buried in work they will forget what a weekend is. The error in that statement, of course, is that they're bureaucrats, so rigid adherence to rules, and not outcomes are important, and the rules say the hours of work shall be 9am to 5pm, which means the work just won't get done, which means they'll need to hire more people, which means the fees will go up. I don't care. Whole nations (you know who you are) have been built on revolt against this sort of stupidity.

I have no doubt the bureaucrats in question believe they're doing the job they're paid to do, and doing it to the best of their ability. It is simply their rigid thinking that depresses me, and it makes me want, more and more, to just run off and grow vegetables.