Dietary Supplements under Attack by the AMA, Again

Quite a lengthy article, so I am posting a few excerpts. See above link for full piece.

I know it sounds a bit weird for someone ensconced in complementary medicine, but I regularly read the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) and the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). No, not the entire issues! The vast majority of articles are discipline specific shop pieces -- such as an article for dermatologists on a study that has potentially identified a genetic component for a rare (one in 300,000,000) skin disorder. Nor am I particularly interested in studies commissioned by drug companies in support of their drugs. They are often so abusive of facts as to be virtually meaningless. No, my interest is actually reserved for the three smaller, but far more interesting categories of articles: revolutionary medical breakthroughs, anything related to alternative health, and position papers. To me, these articles represent both the best and worst in modern medicine. Unlike many in the alternative health community, I find much to admire in the medical community. True, you have to sift through the lies and propaganda to know what you're reading. But that said, modern medicine is constantly making major breakthroughs in the treatment of disease and in the development of innovative technologies -- to help the blind to see and the paraplegic to walk, for example. It's truly exciting, and it represents a tremendously positive side of modern medicine.

Then there are the articles about alternative health. These I need to read regularly because they often promote hugely flawed studies that, not surprisingly, come to disparaging conclusions about alternative health. Unfortunately, these studies frequently rely on bad science and are far too numerous for those of us in the alternative community to respond to them all. You might almost think that the medical community had an agenda the way they go after complementary medicine with bad science. (More on this later.)

And finally, there are the AMA position papers, presented in JAMA as "Commentaries." These include far ranging positions on anything that the medical community feels affects its interests -- which at various times has included its advertisers. That's why, back in the day when JAMA carried ads for cigarettes, they also published position papers promoting the virtues of cigarette smoking for weight loss. Now, while it's true those days may be gone, today we nevertheless find equally absurd position papers from the medical community supporting the use of high fructose corn syrup, for example. (And don't you just know they're going to regret that one eventually.)

All of which brings me to the subject of today's newsletter: a recent "commentary" article concerning dietary supplements, written by Bryan E. Denham, PhD. and published in JAMA, thus carrying the imprimatur of the American Medical Association.1 If you were to hazard a guess, what side of the issue do you think the good doctor and the AMA came down on -- pro or con vis-à-vis alternative medicine and dietary supplements? Good guess!

So, the complaint is that government agencies don't have the right to ban supplements comprised of "generally regarded as safe" ingredients unless that particular supplement is proven to be other than what it claims to be? Really, that's the medical concern here? I know I'm a lot more concerned about pharmaceutical drugs that continue to be sold even after they are proven to be unsafe and kill people. Hormone replacement therapy is still prescribed and sold to over 3,000,000 women a year in the United States alone -- even after it was proven to increase the risk of death from both heart disease and cancer. The number of deaths each year caused by that one prescription alone dwarfs all of the deaths that could be attributed to every single alternative health remedy sold in the United States over the last quarter century! In marketing, that's called valuation by perspective.

"For US health professionals, the fact that more than 150 million US residents use dietary supplements should be a point of concern as many users will almost certainly forgo conventional medical treatment in favor of using products that may offer no medicinal value and taking health advice from medically untrained sales representatives."

When we talk about people using products that may offer no medicinal value, let's talk about statin drugs and antidepressants. Statin drugs have now been shown, by the pharmaceutical companies' own research no less, to have no value at all (none, zero, nada) when it comes to adding even one single day to your life unless you've already had a heart attack. Antidepressants have been proven to be about as effective as a placebo, except in the most severe cases. But even worse, they double your risk of relapsing into depression. Perhaps the medical community should worry a bit more about getting its own house in order before taking on the "complementary" community.

"Counterintuitively, DSHEA became law 5 years after the L-tryptophan amino acid disaster of 1989, in which 38 individuals died and 1500 sustained adverse reactions."

Yes, those statistics are correct…but also misleading. People didn't die because there was anything inherently wrong with L-tryptophan as a supplement. In fact, after an extensive investigation, the Center for Disease Control announced in the New England Journal of Medicine that the problem was not actually with L-tryptophan, but with a batch of contaminated products produced by the Japanese manufacturer Showa Denko. In point of fact, the FDA confirmed this in their official publication, FDA Consumer, which stated, "It appears the problem is not with the amino acid itself, but rather with the product becoming contaminated as a result of a change in the firm's manufacturing process." What they didn't mention is that the change that caused the problem was actually pushed by the FDA to improve safety, no less.

Amazingly, as “chance” would have it, within 4 days of the banning of L-tryptophan, Prozac was the cover story in Newsweek magazine. Almost, as if by a miracle, it seems, Prozac, which is patented and is far more expensive than L-tryptophan, was there to fill the gap and became the miracle drug to take the place of L-tryptophan. Oh, and as we’ve already mentioned, unlike L-tryptophan, Prozac works no better than a placebo and it can cause psychotic episodes that lead to murder. Unfortunately, it’s part of an $11 billion industry, so it’s not going anywhere.

Nutrients should be derived from eating food, not popping pills (unless one enjoys seeing their urine turn yellow because of the water soluble vitamins getting flushed down the toilet-along with their money.

From the article...

But wait a second, weren’t there at least 100 people who died as a result of using ephedra products? Not really. Despite the medical community’s “party line” that the doctor has apparently bought into, the case against ephedra is based on statistical nonsense. The FDA compiled, over several years, a list of people who had died from heart attacks or strokes and had been using ephedra. They then determined that 100% of the people on that list of people who died had been using ephedra. That makes ephedra pretty dangerous, yes? No!!! You could make the same argument against water. Make a list of all those who have died from heart attack and stroke and also drank water. By definition, 100% of the people on that list would be water drinkers. That doesn’t mean that drinking water caused those strokes and death. It actually doesn’t mean anything. It’s bogus logic.

“Few industries enjoy the level of protection DSHEA provides supplement manufacturers.”

Oh my goodness, that’s just so hypocritical. Nothing compares with the pharmaceutical industry. They get to sell billions and billions of dollars worth of products that have been proven to be no more effective than placebos and have some truly nasty side effects besides. I’m talking about flu shots, statin drugs, antidepressants, and hormone replacement therapy to name just a few. But even better, even when one of their drugs has been found to actually kill people by the thousands, they are often allowed to continue selling those drugs. You think that’s an exaggeration? Consider the fact that even after Vioxx was implicated in the deaths of over 27,000 people,14 a 32-member FDA advisory committee decided that the benefits of Merck’s Vioxx and Pfizer’s Celebrex and Bextra outweighed the risk of cardiac damage for patients taking them — even though non-lethal alternatives were available.15

Most food supplements are completely derived form crops grown in proper soil.

The ‘vitamin’ pills that turn your urine yellow com from the Big Pharma poison factories, like squibb, Bayer, etc. Those are not used by anyone with even a minimal knowledge of nutrition.

the fact that more than 150 million US residents use dietary supplements should be a point of concern as many users will almost certainly forgo conventional medical treatment

In other words, supplements are cutting into their piece of the pie...

Remember a while back, not long ago, when the FDA or somebody decided to classify WALNUTS as a “drug”?

Think about it. If somebody was selling walnuts and making medical claims THAT WERE UNTRUE, then the FDA could body slam them and shut them up.

But the FDA didn’t do that.

They tried to regulate the walnuts.

The only conclusion one can come to is that THE WALNUTS ACTUALLY DO WHAT IT IS THEY SAID!

Counterintuitively, DSHEA became law 5 years after the L-tryptophan amino acid disaster of 1989, in which 38 individuals died and 1500 sustained adverse reactions.

The bad L-tryptophan came from genetically engineered bacteria - a fact that is rarely mentioned.

>> “The only conclusion one can come to is that THE WALNUTS ACTUALLY DO WHAT IT IS THEY SAID!” <<

.
Absolutely!

Its the same as with Lane Labs’ “Skin Amswer,” which they even admitted in writing that they forced off the market because it obviously cured skin cancer and hadn’t been approved to do so. You can’t even make this stuff up.

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