Vitamins nowhere to be seen on death's radar screen
CategoriesVitamins and other natural health products are just about the safest things you can buy anywhere, safer even than food, as demonstrated by actual statistics. Yet we get regular outrageous press coverage about how supposedly we have to be careful when using nutrients or herbs, warning of dire consequences to our health. Conversely, nary a mention in the press of the hundreds of thousands of deaths caused every year by pharmaceutical prescriptions, medical "mishaps" and infections contracted in hospitals.
A Globe and Mail article on 31 May 2003 warned: "Think twice before you swallow that handful of vitamins". Croft Woodruff in Vancouver points out that some of the research they are reporting on is seriously flawed and taken out of the actual context in which it needs to be seen and evaluated. Read Croft's letter to the editor of Globe and Mail.
To the Editors of the Globe and Mail
There is a concerted effort on the part of pharmaceutical interests to restrict access to vitamins and have government place them on a prescription basis only. The best way to do that is create and publish junk science designed to scare the regulators and the public into accepting restricted access to food supplements (Think twice before you swallow that handful of vitamins Globe & Mail, Saturday, May 31, 2003).
When the basis for such claims are tracked down they found to be are based on poorly designed studies that fail to look at variables. A perfect example of this sort of junk science was a recent study out of Sweden and published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Intake of Vitamin A of 10,000 units or more was alleged to be toxic and caused brittle bones. Nowhere did the study account for vitamin D intake (which is a deficiency problem in northern latitudes), magnesium, zinc, and boron status which along with calcium are equally important for bone building and tensile strength.
A research challenged media, picking up on the story, ran headlines that failed to differentiate between Beta Carotene which is only a precursor to vitamin A synthesis in the body or vitamin A from fish liver oils. Such poor reporting would lead one to suggest perhaps beef and other animal livers available in the super market meat counter should be on prescription. 3.5 to 4.5 ounces of braised or fried beef liver contain 35,000 to 45,000 international units of pre formed vitamin A. There have been similar junk science based reports fingering vitamin E and C - even suggesting they cause cancer or heart disease when the opposite is true.
Your science reporter would be well advised to obtain a copy of the Drug Induced Nutrient Depletion Handbook, Lexicomp Press. She may then learn why doctors, pharmaceuticals and hospitals are the third leading cause of death in North America while vitamins are nowhere to be seen on death's radar screen.Croft Woodruff
6262-A Fraser Street
Vancouver BC V5W 3A1
604 327 3889
posted by Sepp Hasslberger on Thursday June 5 2003
updated on Saturday September 24 2005URL of this article:
http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/sepp/2003/06/05/vitamins_nowhere_to_be_seen_on_deaths_radar_screen.htm
