Fwd: [S-A] Conventional Medicine Far Riskier Than Supplements

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" Misty L. Trepke "

Wed, 15 Oct 2003 16:19:47 -0000

[s-A] Conventional Medicine Far Riskier Than Supplements

 

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Misty L. Trepke

http://www..com

 

Conventional Medicine Far Riskier Than Supplements

 

This is a good summary of all the machinations regarding the bogus

regulations for vitamins etc. Just follow the money...

 

Chris Gupta

http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2003/10/15/conventional_medicin

e_far_riskier_than_supplements.htm

------------------------

Conventional Medicine - Far Riskier Than Supplements

by Barbara Sumner Burstyn

 

The panic over the blanket recall of alternative treatments

manufactured by Pan Pharmaceuticals was way out of proportion to the

facts.

 

Hands up if you threw out all your vitamins last month just to be on

the safe side, after it was discovered that the Australian Company

Pan Pharmaceuticals had serious deficiencies in manufacturing and

quality control.

 

When the dust settled, though, just one product from Pan, an

over-the-counter travel sickness tablet, had caused harm. But the

tarnish quickly spread to the supplement industry as a whole, as a

blanket recall caused people to doubt not only the effectiveness of

vitamins and supplements but their safety.

 

We may have been looking in the wrong direction. While the Pan

medication put 19 Australians in hospital, and others suffered

unspecified harmful reactions, there were no reports of such

incidents in New Zealand. At least not relating to legally produced

vitamins and supplements, even though an estimated half of New

Zealanders take them.

 

Rather according to the Ministry of Health, more than 650 New

Zealanders die each year from highly preventable reactions to

pharmaceutical medicines (in the United States the number exceeds

106,000).

 

So given that no one has died in New Zealand from taking legal,

over-the-counter supplements, and harmful reactions are rare, why

the disproportionate media fuss over Pan Pharmaceuticals?

 

And why the calls to increase regulation of an industry that already

has more than 20 acts, regulations and codes of practice in place.

And why the advisory from the ministry telling people to discard

their supplements if they were at all unsure?

 

If you ask alternative medicine proponents, they'll relate a saga

that sounds like a conspiracy theory gone wild: from manipulation of

the media by the pharmaceutical industry to overt and covert efforts

to flout law, discredit and otherwise damage the reputation of

natural remedies.

 

They talk even of pharmaceutical companies taking over the

nutritional supplements market and working to reduce the legal

potency of products so as to make them ineffective.

 

After all, the alternative practitioners argue, the global

pharmaceutical industry is the most profitable on earth and depends

on a steady supply of sick people. It all sounds ridiculous, right?

 

Not according to the latest edition of the British Medical Journal.

It's entirely devoted to claims that patients and governments are

being systematically misled by pharmaceutical companies. Its

dissection of the industry reveals how research is being

compromised, and exposes the tactics used to promote new drugs and

the relationships between the world's leading pharmaceutical

companies and supposedly independent medical journals and

family doctors.

 

Then there's the dietary Supplement Safety Bill being introduced in

the US. Backed by the pharmaceutical industry, the legislation, if

passed, will effectively medicalise the dietary supplement industry,

forcing most manufacturers out of business, allowing a

pharmaceutical take over of the industry.

 

Or the Codex Alimentarius Commission, Run by the United Nations.

Codex is empowered to set standards of operation for the health

industry. Strangely, 90% of representation is from multinational

pharmaceutical corporations but the supplement industry and the

general public are barred from attending.

 

Codex is working to control such things as the sale of dietary

supplements for preventative or therapeutic reasons and the potency

of natural remedies. It also seeks to convert definitions of many

supplements to drugs and to make its rules binding on every UN

member nation.

 

In Germany and Norway, where the Codex proposals are already

enshrined in law, even Vitamin C (above 200 mg) is illegal, except

by prescription and then only from the pharmaceutical company that

supplies the medical system. But first you need to have convinced

your doctor that you need it.

 

All this is happening despite recent reports such as that from

Harvard University on the prevention of cancer of the colon. The

longitudinal study of nearly 100,000 nurses over 20 years shows that

<http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/chris/2003/07/14/the_fda_versus_foli

c_acid.htm>folic acid supplements reduce cancer of the colon by a

huge 75 to 80 %.

 

At the same time, the John Hopkins Medical Center's nutrition

department has stated that, based on studies where people take a

supplement, Vitamin E seems to reduce risk of some cancers by 60 to

70 % and the risk of heart disease by 80 to 90 %.

 

But perhaps the pharmaceutical industry, despite its power, is just

a little worried. Last week the New York Times reported that the

Pharmaceuticals Research and Manufacturers of America would increase

its lobbying budget by 23% to US$150 million (259 million) in the

coming year. Its budget includes more than US$2.5 million for such

things as " intellectual echo chambers of economists and thought

leaders " (read journalists), and for the placement of articles by

third parties and media relations consultants.

 

The agency also set aside US$ 12.3 million to develop coalitions and

strategic alliances with doctors, patients, universities and

influential members of minority groups. Pinch me, I am dreaming.

Doesn't this sound evil to you?

 

The bottom line is that you're 26,000 times more likely to die from

properly researched, regulated, prescribed and used drugs than

dietary supplements. Whether those supplements are effective,

preventative measures, you will have to decide for yourself. But

some how the behaviour of the pharmaceutical companies makes me

suspicious that the researchers at Harvard and John Hopkins and all

those vitamin and mineral advocates might be right after all.

 

So just to be on the safe side, I'm taking my vitamins-- while I can

still get them.

 

<http://campaignfortruth.com/Eclub/210803/CTM-%20panpharma2.htm>New

Zealand Herald, 16th June 2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

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