Campaign Launched Against Dietary Supplements by Bill Sardi

[Guest guest]

Sardar

Sardar

Saturday, January 22, 2005 3:38 PM

Campaign Launched Against Dietary Supplements by Bill Sardi

 

 

 

There is a quiet attack on your rights to buy and use vitamins and

supplements that is being funded by the government and the drug companies.

If they have their way you won't be able to buy supplements or vitamins

freely. This is happening in Europe already. They will be labeled drugs and

they will be sold behind the counter like prescription drugs are now. Write

your Congressman and demand that this attack on our health choices be

stopped and that we keep the big drug companies out of our health choices.

 

Sardar

 

Campaign Launched Against Dietary Supplements

 

by Bill Sardi

 

 

 

At a time when the Food and Drug Administration is under criticism for

approving unsafe drugs, and when pharmaceutical companies are being called

to task for not disclosing negative studies of their products, a concerted

effort is being launched against dietary supplements. The obvious reason -

don't let the public discover dietary supplements as alternative to

prescription drugs that can duplicate the biological action of most

prescription medicines with far lower costs and side effects.

 

Harvard Medical School in a joint effort with the FDA and the Institute of

Medicine, has released a report that says: " Unlike drugs, which must be

proven safe before they can be sold, the current law allows sale of

supplements unless the Food and Drug Administration can prove them harmful. "

The assumption is that prescription drugs are safer than supplements because

they have undergone an FDA approval process. But a review of data from the

US Poison Control Centers indicates vitamin and mineral supplements are

linked with few if any deaths over the past few years and deaths linked to

use of herbal products, except for ephedra, are few. For comparison, just

the use of non-steroidal pain relievers like aspirin and ibuprofen cause an

estimated 16,000 deaths annually. Side effects from properly used

prescription drugs, administered by nurses in hospitals, result in over

100,000 deaths annually. The FDA approval process does not guarantee safety.

 

Public Citizen, the Ralph Nader group, indicates 181 FDA-approved drugs

should be recalled because they are not as safe as other drugs or are

ineffective. An FDA drug reviewer, Dr. David Graham, had to publish his

report on the hidden dangers of Vioxx outside of the country in the British

Medical Journal. His job was later threatened for not following FDA protocol

even though an estimated 139,000 Americans died prematurely from the use of

Vioxx.

 

Many drug side effects are the result of nutritional deficiencies caused by

the medications themselves. But the FDA is stubbornly resistant to warn the

public how to avoid drug side effects by taking companion supplements. For

example, statin cholesterol-lowering drugs deplete the body of coenzyme Q10

which can result in a mortal condition called rhabdomyolysis. Acetaminophen

(Tylenol) is toxic to the liver and acetaminophen use is the leading cause

for liver transplants. The antidote for acetaminophen poisoning is N-acetyl

cysteine, a sulfur-based dietary supplement. The FDA has resisted appeals to

combine these nutrients into the drugs or mandate that supplements be

prescribed as companions.

 

Another mistaken complaint is that dietary supplement manufacturers don't

have to report adverse reactions as do drug companies. Yet the FDA is

obviously working in league with the drug companies to hide negative reports

that could trigger the recall of many drugs.

 

Another false assumption in the report is that dietary supplements interfere

with prescription medications. Hilary Tindle, MD, a research fellow at

Harvard Medical School, and lead author of the report, says: " This is

especially critical as more becomes known about the adverse effects

associated with individual dietary supplements as well as their interactions

with prescription drugs. " But vitamins and minerals are essential for life

and it is the drugs that interfere with the nutrients, not the other way

around.

 

There is a concerted effort to regulate dietary supplements, which is in

reality a smoke screen to limit dosages of vitamins and minerals that can

replace many prescription drugs. For example, high-dose vitamin B6 and

vitamin C reduce blood pressure equally as well as prescription medications.

High-dose folic acid is a safe anti-depressant. High-dose vitamin D is as

effective as many blood pressure pills. High-dose vitamin C can prevent a

form of unstable plaque that causes most sudden-death heart attacks.

Pharmaceutical companies are attempting to patent altered vitamin D

molecules to treat cancer when high-dose vitamin D is inexpensive and has

the same biological action.

 

Later in the year, CODEX, a trade organization linked with the World Health

Organization, hopes to limit dosages of vitamins and minerals under the

presumption high doses cause significant side effects. The Institute of

Medicine report appears to be softening up the public for these limitations.

 

The report discloses the real reason for restrictions against dietary

supplements - in their own words: " In the past five years the biggest change

was an increase in use of herbal supplements. " The pharmaceuticals companies

see herbal remedies advancing while their problematic nostrums are being

discredited.

 

The dietary supplement industry is continually characterized as some giant

behemoth that must be curbed. The industry was responsible for $18.7 billion

in sales in 2002. For comparison, the sales of just one class of drugs,

statins for cholesterol, nearly equal the entire annual sales of dietary

supplements.

 

Both the Harvard and Institutes of Medicine reports advised users of dietary

supplements to disclose their supplement regimens to their doctors. But

doctors are poorly educated in the use of vitamins, minerals and herbal

products and would offer little help to consumers.

 

January 19, 2005

 

Bill Sardi [send him mail] is a consumer advocate and health journalist,

writing from San Dimas, California. He offers a free downloadable book, The

Collapse of Conventional Medicine, at his website.

 

2005 Bill Sardi Word of Knowledge Agency, San Dimas, California.

Not intended for commercial use or posting on other websites. Permission to

reprint should be obtained from the author.

 

Bill Sardi Archives

 

 

 

Back to LewRockwell.com Home Page

 

 

http://www.lewrockwell.com/sardi/sardi34.html