Posted on 11/10/2008 2:14:06 PM PST by yankeedame
Stephen Barrett, M.D.
Linus Pauling, Ph.D. (1901-1994), was the only person ever to win two unshared Nobel prizes. He received these awards for chemistry in 1954 and for peace in 1962. He contributed greatly to the development of chemical theories. His impact on the health marketplace, however, was anything but laudable.
Pauling is largely responsible for the widespread misbelief that high doses of vitamin C are effective against colds and other illnesses. In 1968, he postulated that people's needs for vitamins and other nutrients vary markedly and that to maintain good health, many people need amounts of nutrients much greater than the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs). And he speculated that megadoses of certain vitamins and minerals might well be the treatment of choice for some forms of mental illness.
He termed this approach "orthomolecular," meaning "right molecule." After that, he steadily expanded the list of illnesses he believed could be influenced by "orthomolecular" therapy and the number of nutrients suitable for such use. No responsible medical or nutrition scientists share these views.
Vitamin C and the Common Cold
In 1970, Pauling announced in Vitamin C and the Common Cold that taking 1,000 mg of vitamin C daily will reduce the incidence of colds by 45% for most people but that some people need much larger amounts [1]. (The RDA for vitamin C is 60 mg.) The 1976 revision of the book, retitled Vitamin C, the Common Cold and the Flu, suggested even higher dosages [2].
A third book, Vitamin C and Cancer (1979) claims that high doses of vitamin C may be effective against cancer. Yet another book, How to Feel Better and Live Longer (1986), stated that megadoses of vitamins "can improve your general health . . . to increase your enjoyment of life and can help in controlling heart disease, cancer, and other diseases and in slowing down the process of aging." [3]
Pauling himself reportedly took at least 12,000 mg daily and raised the amount to 40,000 mg if symptoms of a cold appear [4]. In 1993, after undergoing radiation therapy for prostate cancer, Pauling said that vitamin C had delayed the cancer's onset for twenty years.
This was not a testable claim. He died of the disease in August 1994.
Scientific fact is established when the same experiment is carried out over and over again with the same results. To test the effect of vitamin C on colds, it is necessary to compare groups which get the vitamin to similar groups which get a placebo (a dummy pill which looks like the real thing). Since the common cold is a very variable illness, proper tests must involve hundreds of people for significantly long periods of time.
At least 16 well-designed, double-blind studies have shown that supplementation with vitamin C does not prevent colds and at best may slightly reduce the symptoms of a cold [5].
Slight symptom reduction may occur as the result of an antihistamine-like effect, but whether this has practical value is a matter of dispute. Pauling's views are based on the same studies considered by other scientists, but his analyses are flawed.
The largest clinical trials, involving thousands of volunteers, were directed by Dr. Terence Anderson, professor of epidemiology at the University of Toronto [6-9]. Taken together, his studies suggest that extra vitamin C may slightly reduce the severity of colds, but it is not necessary to take the high doses suggested by Pauling to achieve this result. Nor is there anything to be gained by taking vitamin C supplements year-round in the hope of preventing colds.
Another important study was reported in 1975 by scientists at the National Institutes of Health who compared vitamin C pills with a placebo before and during colds. Although the experiment was supposed to be double-blind, half the subjects were able to guess which pill they were getting.
When the results were tabulated with all subjects lumped together, the vitamin group reported fewer colds per person over a nine-month period. But among the half who hadn't guessed which pill they had been taking, no difference in the incidence or severity was found [10]. This illustrates how people who think they are doing something effective (such as taking a vitamin) can report a favorable result even when none exists...
[The lenghty excerpted section deals with vitamin C and cancer and cancer treatment.]
Other Questionable Activities
During the mid-1970s, Pauling helped lead the health-food industry's campaign for a federal law that weakened FDA protection of consumers against misleading nutrition claims. In 1977 and 1979, Pauling received awards and presented his views on vitamin C at the annual conventions of the National Nutritional Foods Association (the major trade association of health-food retailers, distributors and producers).
In 1981, he accepted an award from the National Health Federation (NHF) for "services rendered in behalf of health freedom" and gave his daughter a life membership in this organization.
NHF promotes the gamut of quackery. Many of its leaders have been in legal difficulty and some have even received prison sentences for various "health" activities. Pauling also spoke at a Parker School for Professional Success Seminar, a meeting where chiropractors were taught highly questionable methods of building their practices. An ad for the meeting invited chiropractors to pose with Pauling for a photograph (which presumably could be used for publicity when the chiropractors returned home).
In 1981, after learning that Pauling had donated money to NHF (for his daughter's life membership), I asked whether he knew about NHF's shady background and the fact that it was the leading antifluoridation force in the United States. I also asked whether he cared that the money might be used to help fight fluoridation.
In a series of letters, he replied that he:
He also sent me a profluoridation statement he had issued in 1967 [25]. His claim that he had spoken out for fluoridation surprised me. Although I have read thousands of documents related to Pauling's views and activities, I had never encountred any other indication that he had publicly supported fluoridation.
In 1983, Pauling and Irwin Stone testified at a hearing on behalf of Oscar Falconi, a vitamin promoter charged by the Postal Service with making false claims for several products. Pauling supported Falconi's contentions that vitamin C was useful not only in preventing cancer, but also in curing drug addicts and destroying both viruses and bacteria.
The Administrative Law Judge concluded that Pauling could not substantiate his claims [26].
Pauling also testified in 1984 before the California Board of Medical Quality Assurance in defense of Michael Gerber, M.D., who was accused of improperly administering to patients.
-- One was a 56-year-old woman with treatable cancer who—the Board concluded—had died as a result of Gerber's neglect while he treated her with herbs, enzymes, coffee enemas, and chelation therapy.
-- The other patients were three-year-old twin boys with ear infections for which Gerber had prescribed 70,000 or more units of vitamin A daily and coffee enemas twice daily for several weeks.
Gerber lost his license to practice medicine as a result of the hearings. He now practices in Nevada under a homeopathic license.
A flyer distributed in 1991 by the Linus Pauling Institute recommended daily doses of 6,000 to 18,000 mg of vitamin C, 400 to 1,600 IU of vitamin E, and 25,000 IU of vitamin A, plus various other vitamins and minerals. These dosages have no proven benefit and can cause troublesome side effects.
Today's Linus Pauling Institute
After Pauling died, fundraising appeals expressed concern that his death would make it more difficult to raise funds to continue the institute's operations. In 1996, the assets of the Linus Pauling Institute of Science and Medicine were used to establish the Linus Pauling Institute (LPI) as a research institute at OSU to investigate the function and role of micronutrients, phytochemicals and microconstituents of food in maintaining human health and preventing and treating disease; and to advance the knowledge in areas which were of interest to Linus Pauling through research and education [27].
The LPI Web site has excellent articles about the function and role of many nutrients. Except for vitamin E, the LPI's recommended nutrient levels are in line with prevailing scientific opinions.
One article notes that Pauling's vitamin C recommendations were based on "theoretical arguments" and that we now have much more scientific information upon which to base recommendations [28]. This certainly is true but glosses over the fact that Pauling's meganutrient theories were absurd and were maintained even after scientific studies refuted them. Overall, however, the LPI is now a respectable education and research facility.
The Bottom Line
Although Pauling's megavitamin claims lacked the evidence needed for acceptance by the scientific community, they have been accepted by large numbers of people who lack the scientific expertise to evaluate them. Thanks largely to Pauling's prestige, annual vitamin C sales in the United States have been in the hundreds of millions of dollars for many years.
Pauling also played a role in the health food industry's successful campaign to weaken FDA consumer protections laws.
The Linus Pauling Institute that bears his name has evolved into a respectable organization. But Pauling's irrational advice about supplements continues to lead people astray.
Did the guy have a way to tap your own sinuses at home to drain them? Everything is clogged, it even hurts behind my eyes.
Has anyone proved his belief false, or have they merely shown poor support for his beliefs? I’d certainly say that Vitamin C SEEMS to help me cut a cold short, but I have to recognize that my own anecdotal experiences are far short of a well-controlled experiment.
How’s your health?
I know how you feel. Hubby brought a cold home from work and I’m on my peak day today. My aches have pains!
I take Vit C daily, but it didn’t help this one.
His beliefs and research are AT LEAST as bonafide as the Statin claims we have been seeing for the last 10 years.
With Vitamin C, a cold only lasts a week. Without it, a cold lasts 7 days.
My observations are anecdotal, but there is NO doubt that taking goodly quantities of Vitamin C cuts a cold short with my wife. The moment she starts feeling the scratchiness coming on, she doses up. The vast majority of the time, it never goes any further.
With me, it's not as effective as it is with her, but it does help some.
MM (in TX)
My remedy is not scientific but it works for me. At the first sign of a cold (sniffles, etc.) I start drinking a shot of whiskey every four hours to six hours.
Has been working for me for ten years.
Besides, I can’t take over the counter stuff.
I’m an avid reader of Arthur Robinson. Arthur Robinson worked with Pauling from 1961-1978 and co-founded the Pauling Institute. The two had a falling out in 1978 over the the effects of Vitamin C and cancer.
“He was not willing to accept the experimentally proved fact that vitamin C in ordinary doses accelerated the growth rate of squamous cell carcinoma in these mice. At the time, Linus was promoting his claim that “75% of all cancer can be prevented and cured by vitamin C alone.” This claim proved to be without experimental foundation and not true, although the possibility that modest doses of vitamin C somewhat improve resistance to cancer has never been adequately tested.”
http://www.nutritionandcancer.org/view/nutritionandcancer/s99p1074.htm
I really do wish I could believe some of the “science” that is coming out of science. The trouble is that science depends on the integrity of the people doing the research. Whatever you may think about Intelligent Design, Ben Stein’s movie showed some pretty unsavory people acting like high priests guarding the temple, instead of open-minded researchers willing to entertain new ideas. I don’t trust them.
The same quacks who admit on record that the drugs they push rarely help more than half the people that take them?
Shucks, if I did that I could have pneumonia and I wouldn’t know it. Sounds like a fantastic remedy. I think I’ll start my regimen right now! Thanks.
Cold-Eeze brand lozenges work well at the first sign of a cold. I’d also try the Zicam products that Rush advertises. I have no monetary interest in either.
Cancer thrives in a body whose pH is acidic. Refined carbs and refined sugars tilt the body from it’s normal slightly alkaline pH to acidic.
So it seems that the diet restrictions would make sense. Cancer needs sugars/carbs to fuel it, and eating veggies and some fruits (simple unrefined sugars) would really cut off the fuel supply. Without fuel the cancer cells can’t sustain themselves.
Actually both of those have worked for me in the past. I just didn’t have any on hand and decided to play the martyr so guilty hubby could wait on me for a change!! roflmao
Nothing helps cure a cold except time and many days in bed watching TV, sleeping, reading and drinking lots of hot tea heavily laced with fresh lemon juice, honey and a good heavy shot of brandy, cognac or whiskey.
Rinse and repeat many, many times till the pain goes away or you pass out. You'll be better in a week or 7 days, whichever comes first.
If you're Jewish, try chicken soup. A nice big matzoh ball is an extra added attraction.
What’d he get the Peace Prize for ?
For a very interesting read about Vitamin C, try SCURVY: How a Surgeon, a Mariner and a Gentleman Solved the Greatest Medical Mystery of the Age of Sail by Stephen R. Bown. Personally, I would go with Dr. Pauling any day over the established medical community’s consensus. They have fought against the benefits of the vitamin from the very beginning and killed untold numbers of people in the process!
He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts against nuclear proliferation.
Linus Pauling, Ph.D. (1901-1994), was the only person ever to win two unshared Nobel prizes. He received these awards for chemistry in 1954 and for peace in 1962.That means so much...
Well, I'll tell ya, darlin', once you hit 50 it's patch...patch...patch..
Add teabag of your choice.
Add tablespoon of honey.
Add one shot of GINGER brandy.
Add one tablespoon of lemon juice.
Add one teaspoon of vinegar.
Add boiling water.
Sip while boiling hot and it's all gone.
So does every system or institution, including churches. Science is the best system we have for increasing our knowledge of the world around us.
But that would also cut nutrition to healthy cells, including immune cells that fight cancer. There are drugs that reduce blood vessel growth in tumors, which makes more sense.
And if you don't get heartburn or indigestion, a few shakes of Tabasco sauce in the mixture will also add to the benefits.
Trust me.
Umm, isn't that the excepted outcome when there are two possible choices?
I prefer the pressurized can marketed as “Simply Saline”. (http://www.blairex.com/SimplySalineReg.php )
I discourage the menthol product, it's too strong for me. Try the plain white can first.
Or ask your pharmacist about sinus irrigation products.
Also a product called “Ponaris” works well for chronic dry sinuses, IMHO. ( http://www.ponaris.net/ )
Not likely the Vit. C.
At the first symptom of a cold, I take 1000 mg.Vit C and later another 500 mg.I have had one cold in 20 years and this is the truth.
I keep it on hand all the time.
Yes, but because they are not screwed up like the cancer cells, they can handle it. The cancer cells cannot. One of the things that gets screwed up in cancer cells is that they are hyper-aggressive in their growth rate. They must have fuel to do it. If .001 of you is cancer and the rest is normal, cutting the fuel is going to hurt the cancer a lot worse than the rest of you.
Yes, they also did say that the guy looked really thin afterwards and after he went through it, started getting back to a more rounded nutritional diet. But the body can take this and bounce back, without hard drugs and really bad side effects.
And although the article didn’t point it out, I will - this may not have worked by itself if the cancer was too far gone, or had for example turned weakened part of an artery wall by turning it malignant, and then rupturing as the cancer cells died off. So I wouldn’t say it could work in all cases, but it does make sense in the way it works.
Dr. Stephen Barrett is a quack and charlatan
Quackwatch review by Ray Sahelian, M.D. - Quackwatch sends an email to Dr. Sahelian
Is Stephen Barrett a Quack?
Over the years I have had many people ask my opinion regarding Stephen Barrett and Quackwatch, but I have been reserved in voicing my thoughts. However, in March 2006 we received an email from someone who claimed that Stephen Barrett had told him negative things about a product I had formulated. Then, in June, 2006 my staff received an email from Stephen Barrett (see below). This prompted us to create a page regarding Quackwatch.org in order to present our point of view. According to the Quackwatch website, this is what Stephen Barrett, M.D. says about himself.
“Stephen Barrett, M.D., a retired psychiatrist who resides in Allentown, Pennsylvania, has achieved national renown as an author, editor, and consumer advocate. In addition to heading Quackwatch, he is vice-president of the National Council Against Health Fraud, a scientific advisor to the American Council on Science and Health, and a Fellow of the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP).”
Is Dr. Stephen Barrett fair in his analysis of nutrition research and those involved in the nutrition industry?
I have not read every single page on Quackwatch but the ones I read give me the impression that in many cases Stephen Barrett, M.D. has done good research on many of the people involved in the alternative health industry, and has pointed out several instances of inaccuracies and scams (for instance, Hulda Clark and her pitiful book “The Cure for all Cancers”). However, I hardly came across reports on his website regarding some of the scams or inaccurate promotion and marketing practices by the pharmaceutical industry. Why is this? Why has Stephen Barrett, M.D. focused almost all of his attention on the nutritional industry and has hardly spent time pointing out the billions of dollars wasted each year by consumers on certain prescription and non-prescription pharmaceutical drugs? If he truly claims to be a true consumer advocate, isn’t it his responsibility to make sure the big scams are addressed first before focusing on the smaller scams? It’s like the government putting all of its efforts going after the poor misusing food stamps while oil companies cheat billions of dollars from consumers with hardly any governmental oversight.
Why is there no review of Vioxx on Quackwatch? Why is there no mention on quackwatch.org of the worthless cold and cough medicines sold by pharmaceutical companies and drug stores? Hundreds of millions of dollars are wasted each year by consumers on these worthless and potentially harmful decongestants and cough syrups. Why is there no mention on quackwatch of the dangers of acetaminophen use, including liver damage? There are more people who die and are injured from Tylenol use each year than there probably have been in the last decade or more of supplement use. If Dr. Barrett had focused his career on educating people in reducing the use of useless and dangerous prescription and nonprescription drugs (even just one, acetaminophen) he would have helped many more people than attempting to scare people from the use of supplements.
Another point I would like to make regarding Quackwatch is that Dr. Barrett often, if not the majority of the time, seems to point out the negative outcome of studies with supplements (you can sense his glee and relish when he points out these negative outcomes), and rarely mentions the benefits they provide. A true scientist takes a fair approach, and I don’t see this in my review of the Quackwatch website. I subscribe to the Quackwatch newsletter (which often has interesting information) but there is hardly any mention of the benefits of supplements. As an example, see a paragraph from the August, 2006 Quackwatch newsletter mentioned a few paragraphs below.
Bottom line: Overall, Dr. Barrett does some good in pointing out scams in the alternative health field, but, in my opinion, he is not fair and balanced, and he is not a true objective scientist as he claims to be. Someone who has a website specifically tailored for criticism needs to have a higher and more objective scientific standard, and Barrett fails in this regard.
Could Stephen Barrett, M.D. post his thoughts on Quackwatch regarding these two topics:
The first is on the billions of dollars spent on worthless and dangerous Alzheimer’s drugs as noted in The New York Times: “Alzheimer’s Drugs Offer No Help, Study Finds” By Benedict Carey, October 12, 2006. The article begins, “The drugs most commonly used to soothe agitation and aggression in people with Alzheimer’s disease are no more effective than placebos for most patients, and put them at risk of serious side effects, including confusion, sleepiness and Parkinson’s disease-like symptoms.”
The second is on drug company charlatanism by Robert Bazell, a medical correspondent for NBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14348176/
Those who think Vitamin C helps fight colds should take Vitamin C.
Those who don't think it helps should not take Vitamin C.
Problem solved.
Where's my Nobel Prize?
I think where your going with this ‘starve the cancer’ bit is off base; but one of the reasons fat people are more prone to cancer is the ready supply of energy awaiting any malignant cell.
As far as Linus Pauling... Brilliance and expertise in one area do not necessarily translate into brilliance and expertise in other areas, no matter how much the expert insists it does.
Oh,...and I forgot, wash your hands a lot. Don’t touch your eyes, nose, lips, etc. when you’ve been touching other people or stuff. Stay off of airplanes and don’t sit next to somebody who’s coughing or sneezing.
Live alone and far away from other people and children. Children are germ and virus factories. They’re filthy.
Is Stephen Barrett, M.D. a Quack?
According to the Quackwatch website, Stephen Barrett, M.D. says this about quackery: Dictionaries define quack as “a pretender to medical skill; a charlatan” and “one who talks pretentiously without sound knowledge of the subject discussed.”
Stephen Barrett, M.D. does not have a degree in nutrition science. He has been trained in psychiatry but has not practiced psychiatry for many, many years and has, to the best of my understanding, never practiced nutritional medicine. In my opinion, Stephen Barrett, M.D., when it comes to the field of medicinal use of nutritional supplements, can be easily defined as a Quack since he pretends to “have skills or knowledge in supplements and talks pretentiously” without actually having clinical expertise or sound knowledge of herbal and nutritional medicine.
A person can’t be an expert at a topic if they have not had hands-on experience. Would you feel comfortable having heart surgery by a doctor who has read all the medical books on how to surgically replace a heart valve but has never performed an actual surgical procedure in an operating room? Would you feel comfortable relying on nutritional advice from a retired psychiatrist, Stephen Barrett, M.D. of Quackwatch, even though he has not had hands-on experience using supplements with patients and does not have a degree in nutrition science?
On a positive note, Stephen Barrett, M.D. often does a good job when it comes to researching credentials of individuals in the nutritional industry, or researching the legitimacy or marketing practices of certain supplement companies. He has uncovered or brought to light several cases of companies that have shady or fraudulent practices. I suggest he stay on this course (which is his forte) rather than giving his uneducated opinion on nutritional medicine or supplement research. I also hope he becomes more balanced in his reviews and makes the effort to also mention positive outcomes regarding supplement research, and not just negative outcomes.
Stephen Barrett, M.D. and Quackwatch lose legal battle and ordered to pay defendant’s attorneys’ fees
December 2007 - After a 6-year legal battle, a California judge ordered Stephen Barrett, M.D. to pay the legal fees of a defendant who, although she has posted negative statements about him, was not held accountable due to a technicality. In an effort to protect Web hosting companies from what is posted on their clients’ Web sites, the US Congress put into legislation language that the courts have interpreted as protecting individuals from suits if they don’t originate the alleged libels.
If Jimmy Carter can get one, why not you?
So it seems that the diet restrictions would make sense. Cancer needs sugars/carbs to fuel it, and eating veggies and some fruits (simple unrefined sugars) would really cut off the fuel supply. Without fuel the cancer cells can’t sustain themselves.”
Unless you have a severe metabolic disorder, you're not going to change the bodies PH by what you eat. The normal body functions of respiration, and the kidney function is designed to maintain a very precise PH balance.
With all due respect Doc you’re reading too much of the literature being put out by the statin makers and those being funded by said.
Statins and their relative success in reducing heart attack and death is miniscule and when you figure “all cause death”, which obviously takes into consideration the negative components associated with statin use, the positive results are little.
I have read mountains of data to backup my opinion and would be happy to forward some of it to you.
The Framington studies are a good place to start because it’s the largest and most comprehensive evaluation every done on heart disease. Also a very good book is “The Great Cholesterol Con” by Malcolm Kendrick.
Good solution, but mine goes one step further: Don't get colds and you won't have to worry about the debate. (Colds are so old-school. Do people really still get those?)
I haven't had one since January 2001. I don't know if the Vitamin C is responsible, but I will argue that 3g a day prevents mystery bruises (the kind that magically appear and aren't the result of an injury).
As we all learned in history class*, colds were actually an invention of the American government to keep the black man down. But the disease careened out of control and it spread throughout the population.
A cure has been developed. It has been held secret for decades and, until now, it has only been shared with the white power structure. Finally, the antidote will be released to us all by the new Obama regime.
Obama is a truly great man. Stay tuned, I hear he has also found a cure for rainy days and flat tires but he's saving the news for after inauguration.
/s
* US History 101 with Prof. Ward Churchill
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