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5/6/2006Why are news reporters slamming vitamin pills while overlooking unsafe drugs?

By Bill Sardi

Recent news reports from the Wall Street Journal and ABC-TV news claim vitamin supplements are unsafe, the public should be wary of these pills, especially in high doses, and the dietary supplement industry is unregulated, so it is caveat emptor (buyer beware).

Funny thing, in the past year or two, Vioxx, the pain-relieving anti-inflammatory drug, which could be acquired by doctor’s prescription only, was reported to have killed up to 20,000-50,000 Americans due to blood clots and subsequent heart attacks. But recent news reports are making it sound like vitamin pills pose mortal side effects, and as long as Vioxx has a block-box warning, it’s back on the prescription list after being voluntarily recalled by its manufacturer.

Why no black box warning for vitamin pills? Why of course not, dietary supplements are safer than food (millions of cases of food poisoning annually), safer than table salt (raises blood pressure in some individuals) and safer than aspirin (causes bleeding ulcers, irreversible asthma, and thousands of deaths).

Never proven safe

The revelation that Vioxx is unsafe was more than a statistical discovery. Vioxx’s potential to kill unsuspecting consumers exposed the fact that many FDA-approved prescription drugs pose serious health problems even when used in the proper dosages. The FDA approves drugs based on limited studies and cannot fully determine if a drug increases mortality or morbidity until larger groups use the medication. This means most new prescription medications are of unknown risk till long after their approval. The shocking problem is that the FDA has not required post-approval safety testing for hundreds of drugs in use today.

Sixty-five percent of the 1,231 so-called “post-marketing” drug studies that companies had pledged to carry out were still pending. Dr. Jerry Avorn, a Harvard Medical School professor and author of “Powerful Medicines,” says the numbers show the system is broken and calls the situation “scandalous” and “appalling.”

What we end up with are drugs that are just slightly more effective than an inactive placebo tablet, but pose unknown risks, some which may be mortal, that could outweigh any proposed health benefits.

But wait a moment, I thought it was the dietary supplement industry, not the prescription drug industry, that was escaping the watchful eye of the FDA? Why have news reporters inappropriately pointed their fingers at innocent vitamin pills?

Pseudoscience

The answer to that question is pseudoscience, now proliferating medical journals at a rapid pace. Misleading studies are being planted into peer-reviewed medical journals.

Like the study that concluded high-dose vitamin E increases the risk for heart failure. No previous study ever came to this conclusion, but the recent study claimed there is a 40% increased relative risk for heart failure among adults taking 400 milligram vitamin E pills. These studies should be scrutinized by trained reporters, such as Dr. Timothy Johnson of ABC News or Tara Parker-Pope of the Wall Street Journal, who recently aired and published negative reports about vitamin pills. Instead, reporters parrot press releases sent to them from medical journals and public health organizations.

The study in question showed 12.1 percent in the inactive placebo group and 13.5 percent in the vitamin E group were more likely to be hospitalized for heart failure. In hard numbers (not relative figures) that’s a 1.4% difference. Careful examination of the study shows that the study participants were, in addition to vitamin E, taking three drugs that can cause heart failure: beta blockers which slows the heart rate, statin cholesterol drugs that depletes heart muscle of a necessary antioxidant – coenzyme Q10, and diuretics (water pills) that wash out vitamin B1 (thiamine) in the urinary flow which can result in heart failure. But not one of these drugs were cited by the vitamin police. Instead, vitamin E pills got ticketed.

Another example of the pseudoscience is the claim that high-dose vitamin A may induce birth defects. Vitamin A has been found to induce birth defects in animals, but at daily intake levels that would never likely be achieved by humans. A study with cats found it would take 2 million units of vitamin A to induce birth defects. [Journal Animal Physiology Animal Nutrition 87: 42-51, 2003]

A report published over 15 years ago by Scientists with the Center for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition, Food and Drug Administration, claimed that 25,000 units of vitamin A may be the threshold for birth defects among pregnant women, but noted that the toxicity occurs among women with compromised liver function who take drugs or who have viral hepatitis or other liver problems. Was this sufficient reason to warn all fertile women away from vitamin A supplements? [American Journal Clinical Nutrition 52: 183-202, 1990]

A more recent study found that multivitamin use protects against cleft palate, a common birth defect, and that vitamin A protects against this occurrence. Higher intake levels of vitamin A were more, not less, protective. [American Journal Epidemiology 158: 69-76, 2003]

If Tara-Parker Pope and Dr. Timothy Johnson had done their homework, they might have found that birth defects caused by high-dose vitamin A may be induced by deficiencies of other essential nutrients, like folic acid and vitamin E.

In a study conducted by researchers at the National Institutes of Health, vitamin A toxicity was observed among rabbits only when they were deficient another essential nutrient. Rabbits experienced birth defects in their offspring when they were given high-dose vitamin A and their diets were deficient in vitamin E. Vitamin E is actually a treatment for vitamin A overdose. [Contemporary Topics: Laboratory Animal Science 43: 26-30, 2004]

How many American women are deficient in vitamin E? Most of them. But no action is taken by health authorities. Recommended daily intake is 15 milligrams and most Americans consume 8-10 milligrams.

Another compelling study with mice showed that a deficiency of essential nutrients, folic acid, choline and methionine, did not induce birth defects (spina bifida). Researchers wondered why. They then added high doses of vitamin A to the diets of the pregnant mice that were deficient in the other aforementioned nutrients. The birth defects were produced.

What this means is that if pregnant women take high-dose vitamin A along with sufficient amounts of folic acid, choline and methionine, they are not likely to produce birth defects in their offspring. [Journal Nutrition 133: 3561-70, 2003] Why this information isn’t being shared with fertile women goes unexplained. This is what Tara-Parker Pope and Dr. Timothy Johnson should be reporting in their news broadcasts.

Why the negative spin on vitamin pills?

So why all the negative spin about vitamin supplements? It’s clear that drug makers don’t want consumers discovering they can take dietary supplements with far greater safety and effectiveness and at far less cost. In the wake of the Vioxx scandal, consumers are backing away from prescription drugs. In the third quarter of 2005, United States sales of prescription drugs fell 3 percent at Bristol-Myers Squibb, 4.5 percent at Johnson & Johnson, 2 percent at Merck and 15 percent at Pfizer. A 2005 poll shows that only 9 percent of Americans believe drug companies are generally honest, down from 14 percent in 2004. [New York Times November 14, 2005]

The only way the drug companies are going to be able to prop up their stock value is to increase prices, prompt retirees to sign up for the new Medicare prescription program, and conduct television and other advertising directly to consumers, which is precisely what is underway. –Copyright 2006 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc.

 

 

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© 2006 Bill Sardi, Knowledge of Health, Inc. All material on this site, including all factual statements and opinions, are solely those of Bill Sardi and are not sponsored, endorsed, or authorized by any other person or entity. If you have a health condition, you are advised to seek other medical opinions from health professionals before making any changes in your health regimens. The reports on this website are for information purposes only.