"WHY should we be dictated to? The freedom to manage our own health has been taken away" - your headline over the story about a European ban on some supplements (July 14).

As much as I feel greatly for these shops, and people involved in this regulation of food supplements, let's try putting that same headline on the top of a page that included the words "Yes! To Clean Air" or "a total ban on smoking in public".

I am sure this headline would not appear above either because it does not conform to the small mindedness of the bored, vindictive people that have nothing else to moan about.

Dave Penn,

Fitzjohn Close,

Malton.

Updated: 10:59 Monday, July 18, 2005