The brief story below outlines an issue on which I am engaged as a
consultant by one commercial party. In appealling to beekeepers for help
in this matter, I hope any other interests will be declared. I have just
learned that the rancid pollen is being exported, so please do what you can
to warn about it.
It is also conceivable that the "potentiation" process could be
done elsewhere than NZ. I fear it will bring pollen into disrepute as a
food supplement when properly-dried pollen is a good food.
BANKS TELLS POLLEN CRITICS TO BUZZ OFF
Sunday Star-Times [NZ]
01-2-18
p. A8
Kim Purdy
{photo, without Harley; caption JOHN BANKS}
Former MP John Banks stands by his bee pollen products, now the subject of
a complaint laid with the Advertising Standards Complaints Board.
John Triggs, managing director of rival bee product company Abeeco,
claims Banks' products have no scientific basis and are not fit for human
consumption.
Says Banks: "I see this man as just nothing more or less than an
aggrieved competitor and I don't give those sort of people mind time."
The products are Topline International's Nature Bee potentiated bee
pollen capsules. Topline claims its process of potentiation, or increasing
[sic] of regular pollen, improves digestion of the product by up to 80
times. Topline co-owner Ben Cook said he and Banks were relaxed about the
complaint. He said similar complaints Triggs had laid in the past had not
been upheld.
Triggs said Abeeco, fellow bee company Comvita, the National
Nutritional Foods Association and Auckland biochemist Dr Robert Mann had
requested scientific evidence from Topline and its supplier [sic],
Canterbury University dean of science [he no longer is] Dr Kelvin Duncan,
but they had produced nothing.
Mann, a former member of the government's toxic substances board,
responsible for scheduling poisons, said the product should not be
permitted for human consumption.
He said pollen contained essential fatty acids which were
vulnerable to breakdown during storage and could become poisonous. Testing
on animals was essential to prove the potentiated process [sic] was safe.
However, Cook said their scientific evidence was sound: "Why would
we as a marketing company market a product which wasn't substantiated?
"We're not going to associate ourselves with a product which isn't
proven."
Banks resigned from his controversial breakfast show on Radio
Pacific in January to relaunch his business career and see his health food
company listed on the stock exchange.
---
Explanatory note: The ASA panel, led by senior scientist Dr Mervyn Probine,
determined that the claims of improved nutritive value were false &
misleading. They did not suggest any conclusion on possible toxicity.
What Duncan is reported to have 'supplied' is an invention of
cracking pollen grains by suddenly dropping from ca30 bar an atmosphere of
carbon dioxide. He has never provided any scientific info at all in
support of the claim that pollen's nutritive value is thus raised 80x.
Indeed, this claim is known to be false if Topline's claim be true that
bio-availability of normal pollen is 10-30%; at that rate the outer limit
for potential improvement is 10x not 80x.
The principle is the same as with GEF: a novel process to modify
food should not be permitted until proper testing has shown the modified
food to be OK. Pusztai & Ewen, and Showa Denko before them, have produced
evidence that GEF can be very much *not* OK; Duncan has produced no
evidence of testing for his modified pollen, and it should therefore not be
permitted for human consumption.
Here is my statement on this matter from the Abeeco newsletter:
> "My concerns are three.
>Any claim to multiply the benefits of pollen by the huge factor of 80-fold
>is implausible; where are the measurements on which it could be based?
> After the 'potentiation' process, what is the stability of the good
>chemicals in the pollen - do they then have a normal shelf-life?
>And if they break down, are the resulting breakdown products toxic?
> Testing on animals will be required to settle this last concern. Until
>these concerns are settled by facts, this 'potentiated' pollen should in
>my opinion not be permitted for human consumption."
Since writing that, I have tasted some of the "potentiated" pollen,
and tasted anew ordinary pollen. The brown "potentiated" material tastes
bitter & rancid.
My concern for beekeepers is that if this "potentiated" stuff turns
out to be harmful, or merely less nutritious, when tested, sales of normal
pollen by beekeepers (around $25/kg, I gather) might be crueled.
Any comments would be welcome.
R
-
Robt Mann
consultant ecologist
P O Box 28878 Remuera, Auckland 1005, New Zealand
(9) 524 2949
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