Draft Report of the Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel, May 22,

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Report of the Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel

Mon, 22 May 2006 19:59:47 -0500

" Orthomolecular Medicine News Service " <omns

 

 

 

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, May 23, 2006

 

Draft Report of the Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel, May 22,

2006

 

Abram Hoffer, MD

Michael Janson, MD

Thomas Levy, MD, JD

Carolyn Dean, ND, MD

Harold Foster, PhD

Erik Paterson, MD

Andrew Saul, Chairman

 

(OMNS, May 23, 2006) A recent US National Institutes of Health report

has attempted to cast doubt on food supplement safety. However, it is

the dissenting opinion of the Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel

that

 

1) the NIH report is biased against nutritional supplementation,

because

 

2) NIH’s selection of panel members excluded professionals that

advocate nutritional supplementation, and

 

3) the research NIH reviewed selectively excluded hundreds of studies

supporting the safety and effectiveness of nutritional supplementation.

 

NIH documents show that the NIH panel never even looked at over 600

scientific studies and papers from the Journal of Orthomolecular

Medicine,

a journal that in fact specializes in publishing vitamin therapy

research, and has done so for forty years. The NIH panel also failed to

consider the wealth of physician reports in medical publications such

as the

Townsend Letter for Doctors and Patients.

 

The following is a quote from the NIH-sponsored review

“Multivitamin/Mineral Supplements and Prevention of Chronic Disease,

May 2006â€

posted at http://www.ahrq.gov/clinic/tp/multivittp.htm :

 

“Objective: To review and synthesize published literature on the

efficacy of multivitamin/mineral supplements and certain single nutrient

supplements in the primary prevention of chronic disease in the general

adult population, and on the safety of multivitamin/mineral supplements

and certain single nutrient supplements . . .â€

 

“Data Sources: All articles published through February 28, 2006, on

MEDLINE®, EMBASE®, and the Cochrane databases.

 

“Review Methods: Each article underwent double reviews on title,

abstract, and inclusion eligibility. Two reviewers performed data

abstraction and quality assessment. . .

 

“Results: Few trials have addressed the efficacy of

multivitamin/mineral supplement use in chronic disease prevention in

the general

population of the United States. . .

 

" Conclusion: . . . The overall quality and quantity of the literature

on the safety of multivitamin/mineral supplements is limited.â€

 

Limited, indeed. It was limited by the biased selection process, which,

for example, excluded over 600 papers from a specialist medical

journal, the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. Nothing published in The

Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine is indexed on Medline. Medline is

run by

the National Library of Medicine. The National Library of Medicine is

part of the National Institutes of Health. One can see that a

significant quantity of relevant data has been excluded from

consideration. Such

exclusion would be in the interest of NIH’s reaching a politically

predetermined conclusion that vitamins are somehow dangerous and the

public is supposedly in some kind of danger from them.

 

And yet, even this biased, self-limited review stated, “We found no

consistent pattern of increased adverse effects of multivitamin/mineral

supplements except for skin yellowing by β-carotene.â€

 

This is an important admission of vitamin safety that the NIH press

release of May 17, 2006, totally ignored, and even twisted into an

opposite conclusion. Specifically, the NIH press release included the

following:

 

““More than half of American adults are taking dietary supplements,

the majority of which are multivitamins, and the bottom line is that we

don’t know for sure that they’re benefiting from them. In fact,

we’re concerned that some people may be getting too much of certain

nutrients,†said J. Michael McGinnis, M.D., M.P.P., Senior Scholar with

the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences, who

chaired the panel. . . Most of the public assumes that the components of

multivitamin-minerals (MVM) supplements are safe, because many of the

ingredients are found in everyday foods and the products are available

over-the-counter. The panel identified several possible risks associated

with MVM consumption, however. Among these is the potential for

overconsumption of certain nutrients, with the resulting possibility

of adverse

effects. Though health-conscious individuals are likely to be focused

on ensuring that they meet the recommendations for essential nutr!

ients, the combined effects of eating fortified foods, taking MVMs,

and consuming single vitamins or minerals in large doses, may lead them

to unwittingly exceed the Upper Levels (ULs) of nutrients, which can be

harmful. Given these safety concerns and the limitations of the

available evidence, the panel advocated for changes in the regulation of

dietary supplements †" including MVMs †" by the Food and Drug

Administration (FDA). . .â€

 

Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel Comment:

 

Even though their own commissioned review of the literature failed to

find evidence of harm from vitamin supplements, the NIH press release

chose to emphasize dangers that even their own sponsored study could not

find.

 

NIH states that its report is “not a policy statement of the NIH or

the federal government. The NIH Consensus Development Program, of which

this conference is a part, was established in 1977 as a mechanism to

judge controversial topics in medicine and public health in an unbiased,

impartial manner.†At the very same time, NIH has demonstrated clear

bias in study selection, bias in committee member selection, and biased

reporting to the public.

 

Over half of all Americans take vitamins every day. One cannot help but

ask the NIH this simple question: where are the bodies? Interestingly,

the NIH panel ignored pharmaceutical drug dangers, while concentrating

on unfounded concerns over your daily multivitamins. This also

indicates bias.

 

According to statistics compiled annually by the American Association

of Poison Control Centers (1), multivitamins kill no one. Gross overdose

of iron (not a vitamin) has been associated with perhaps two deaths per

year. On the other hand, in 2003, there were 59 deaths from aspirin

alone. That is a death rate nearly thirty times higher than that

attributed to iron supplements. There were still more deaths from

aspirin in

combination with other pharmaceutical products. In 2003, two people died

from caffeine. Three people died from dishwashing detergent. There was

also a death from " Cream/lotion/makeup, " a death from granular laundry

detergent, and one death from table salt.

 

On the other hand, the Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel asserts

that there is not one death per year from any vitamin in the alphabet.

Not from A, B’s, C, D or E.

 

Panelist Michael Janson, MD, said, “In decades of people taking a

wide variety of dietary supplements, few adverse effects have been noted,

and zero deaths as a result of the dietary supplements. There is far

more risk to public health from people stopping their vitamin supplements

than from people taking them.â€

 

This is true for multivitamins containing minerals as well. Panelist

Harold Foster, PhD, said: “The ever declining mineral content of soils,

and foods grown in them, requires that the public take supplements, if

only to keep their mineral intake at former levels.â€

 

Panelist Carolyn Dean, ND, MD, points out that, unlike nutritional

supplements, pharmaceutical drugs do indeed kill people. “784,000

people

are dying annually, prematurely, due to modern medicine,†she said.

“These are statistics from peer-reviewed journals and government

databases.â€

 

The Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel therefore asks, Why would

NIH push so hard for FDA control of vitamin supplements, which are safe,

when FDA clearly is not effectively controlling pharmaceutical drugs,

which are dangerous?

 

Panelist Thomas Levy, MD, said: “It can clearly be shown that

excessive or obsessive water intake will reliably kill the

overindulgers who

push their sodium levels to a low enough point in the blood. This is

well documented. Should water be justifiably regarded as a potentially

fatal poison or toxin while ridiculous assaults continue on the

theoretical toxicity of vitamin C, as well as many other vitamin and

nutrient

supplements? "

 

Panelist Erik Paterson, MD, said: " For 33 years I have aggressively

prescribed and advocated vitamins in doses vastly higher than the US

DRI/RDA, for my family and my patients. I have never seen any adverse

reactions, even though I have been on the alert for them all this time. "

 

Panelist Abram Hoffer, MD, who also has a PhD in nutritional

biochemistry, said, “Vitamin supplements are extraordinarily safe and

effective. This is based on fifty years of clinical experience without

seeing

any life-threatening side effects and no deaths. It is drugs that are

dangerous. Perhaps the US Food and Drug Administration is getting

tired of

all the bad news about drugs, so instead they are going after

nutritional supplements.â€

 

It is the conclusion of the Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel

that the US National Institutes of Health has ignored the benefits of

vitamin supplementation, grossly overstated supposed risks, and in so

doing, has both misinformed the public and harmed the public’s health.

 

References:

 

1. Watson WA, Litovitz TL, Klein-Schwartz W, Rodgers GC Jr, Youniss J,

Reid N, Rouse WG, Rembert RS, Borys D. 2003 annual report of the

American Association of Poison Control Centers Toxic Exposure

Surveillance

System. Am J Emerg Med. 2004 Sep;22(5):335-404.

 

2. Testimony before the Government of Canada, House of Commons Standing

Committee on Health, regarding nutritional supplement product safety

(Ottawa, May 12, 2005).

http://www.doctoryourself.com/testimony.htm

 

What is Orthomolecular Medicine?

 

Linus Pauling defined orthomolecular medicine as " the treatment of

disease by the provision of the optimum molecular environment, especially

the optimum concentrations of substances normally present in the human

body. " Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy

to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

 

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit

and non-commercial informational resource.

 

Andrew W. Saul, Editor. Email: drsaul

 

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