Originally Posted by renly84
Pygeum is the active ingredient in „Prostatonin“ which I bought at a pharmacy here in Switzerland. In Italy, its sold under the name „PGprost“. Also, both Amazon Germany and Biovea Germany sell Pygeum supplements, so I don’t think its unavailable in EU. Where did you get your info?
Well, I was looking for Pygeum in Hungarian online stores and could not find it anywhere. However, I did find information suggesting that some of these stores used to sell the stuff but it is no longer available. One or two of these shops stated that Pygeum was “protected and thus cannot be sold in the EU”.
Pharmacies sell several supplements and medicines for the prostate, but these are all saw palmetto- or pumpkin-based, some of them also containing various herbs, but no Pygeum.
Perhaps the info I found at the online stores was wrong, and there is no EU-wide ban, but there must be some reason why this particular ingredient is unavailable in my country. Maybe it’s just local law that prohibits its import. Hungarian conservation legislation is (or at least used to be) stricter than that of the EU.
On further thought it is unlikely that Pygeum’s presence on Appendix II of CITES would be the reason for its being unavailable in Hungary. The USA is also a CITES member (a founder, in fact, which you expect from a Convention signed in Washington DC), as are most (if not all) EU member states, yet Pygeum is available in these countries. Trade of animals and plants in Appendix II of CITES (and products made from them) is illegal only if the specimens were collected in the wild, or more precisely, these specimens (or their parts) cannot be exported from their native countries. However, captive bred specimens can be sold legally, with appropriate documentation. So if you have a legal Pygeum africanum plantation, you can harvest and sell (even export) them.
Anyway, since Pygeum does seem to be illegal in my particular country (for why else would it be unavailable?), my original question remains: is there anything else I could use as its substitute?