Posted on 11/30/2015 10:13:28 AM PST by Sean_Anthony
I fear the media will never get it right about supplements.
Why is it impossible for investigative media reporters to get it right about health supplements? In March of 2013 medical research showed that every day 290 North Americans die from prescription drugs. To kill the same number of people a jumbo jet plane would have to crash every day. I asked Health Canadaâs forensic bureaucrats to explain where the dead bodies are who took natural supplements? I have never had a reply.
Now the media are using a study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S Food and Drug Administration to damn supplements. Its study of 63 hospitals over a 10 year period showed 3,667 emergency room (ER) visits and 2,154 hospitalizations from the use of supplements. But there are no dead bodies.
So what are the statistics for prescription drugs and over-the-counter (OTC) medication? They show 4 million ER visits and, in addition, adverse drug reactions that cause over 100,000 deaths year after year!
Look, what’s going on here is that most of the deaths from prescription drugs come either from abuse or from situations where doctors are quite aware that there is a grave danger but find emergency medicine necessary: No-one is going to use an herbal remedy to prep someone for surgery, and no-one is going to blame an herbal remedy for death when used as a secondary pain reliever for someone at the end of their life. But yes, if you overdose on the prescription pain killers given you while your metasticizing cancer breaks your bones apart, some medical report will list your cause of death as painkiller overdose.
Pharmaceuticals are traditionally nothing more than herbal remedies that have had their effectiveness confirmed, impurities removed, and interactions noted and contraindicated when necessary; failure to go through a process of vetting for safety and effectiveness, purifying, and studied for drug interactions doesn’t make a drug safer.
[I do say “traditionally” because now we live in an era of “designer drugs” wherein a drug manufacturer will say, “what if we do this reaction to substitute this ethyl group for this methyl group?” But again... this usually makes a drug SAFER, not more dangerous.]
Because of some of the idiotic comments made on this thread, I’m posting this comment I posted last July.
Warning: Herbal Remedies are just untested, unverified, impure drugs. (Loved one poisoned by tea.)
vanity | 7-10-15 | vanity
Posted on 7/10/2015, 4:02:09 AM by dangus
My wife is in the hospital because of herbal tea. (Prayers are welcome, thank you.) I consider this news because hopefully the events of the evening will lead to a nation-wide recall, and if not, they should.
Please allow me to reiterate for everyone’s health and safety: “All-natural remedies” are NOT safer than “Big Pharma” (a.k.a. medicine).
Here’s what a drug is:
Someone identifies an herbal remedy. They identify the effective ingredient and purify it from any other ingredients which may cause side effects or be unhealthy or even toxic or simply reduce effectiveness. They may discover and include slight chemical changes to the ingredient which increase effectiveness or reduce side effects. They then rigorously test the substance for side effects, toxicity, addictiveness, or any other negative effects. Then they have to prove its effectiveness and safety to the government to a scientific certainty. Then they determine if it might interact with any conceivable other medications or medical conditions. Finally, by offering it as a recommended substance to patients, they assume liability for any harm it might do to a patient because they failed to test it enough.
“All natural remedies” don’t have to be purified, proven safe or effective, and no-one assumes liability for anything, and no-one tests it for interactions, toxicity or the like.
Had this been a drug, there might be some six-figure settlement involved eventually. As it stands, I’m not optimistic because people who shell natural remedies... no scratch that: untested drugs in the raw... assume much less legal responsibility.
You would want a professional engineer, not some hippy day-dreamer, to design your airplane. Likewise, you should want a pharmaceutical professional, not some hippy day-dreamer to design your medicine.
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>> “Pharmaceuticals are traditionally nothing more than herbal remedies that have had their effectiveness confirmed, impurities removed, and interactions noted and contraindicated when necessary...” <<
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That is a bald faced lie.
Nothing that even contains a naturally occurring substance can legally be patented for medical use.
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OOooOOOOoooooOOOooo! One medical doctor out of hundreds of thousands who lists his masters’ and bachelors’ degrees separately to make himself seem smarter!
“All content within this book is commentary or opinion and is protected under Free Speech laws in all the civilized world. The information herein is provided for educational and entertainment purposes only. It is not intended as a substitute for professional advice of any kind. Dr. Keith Scott-Mumby MD, PhD assumes no responsibility for the use or misuse of this material.”
That’s reassuring! The doctor specified that disavows any responsibility for the use of this material! It’s only commentary! And it’s only for educational and entertainment purposes!
If the issues involved weren’t so personal and so vital, it would be all a ridiculous satire!
Your ignorance is astounding in so many ways. The patents are applied to the purification methods and reactions. Really, you have no idea what the hell you are talking about. You really should quit broadcasting your stupidity and stop trying to convince someone that their wife didn’t almost die.
That’s a lie. And stupid. When push comes to shove ALL THINGS come from naturally occurring substances, it doesn’t matter how synthetically it was produced, it started as naturally occurring molecules.
Specifically, in the case of Aspirin, Bayer received a patent for the purification and conversion of salicin from Filipendula ulmaria (meadowsweet) to acetylsalicylic acid, which was less likely to cause upset stomachs than the naturally occurring form.
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Your entire comment is absolutely, and likely deliberately false.
Petroleum, from which 99+% of pharmaceutical drugs are made, Cannot be considered a natural substance when discussing food or cures.
There are few prescription drugs on the market that are not more deadly than the condition for which they are prescribed.
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Sorry but you’re lying again. Only person being deliberately false here is you.
Funny, I don’t remember asking about his medical credentials.
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>> “started as naturally occurring molecules.” <<
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Nice parsing!
The FReepers on this thread are, by and large, much sharper than you arrogantly have assumed.
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Funny, but you are as deceptive and elusive as they come.
That short treatise demolishes every thought you have expressed here.
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That’s not parsing, that’s proving you’re lying.
Funny that the guy whose tag says FReepers aren’t as smart as he’d hoped is now telling folks FReepers are sharper than they think. Funnier still is that everybody on this thread is calling you out for being full of crap. So I guess you got one right, indeed the FReepers on this thread ARE sharper than YOU arrogantly have assumed.
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Thanks!
We’ve got your number here. Have a nice day.
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Incredible!
Just about everything imaginable is constructed of “naturally occurring molecules.”
How to lie while telling the truth.
Diane Feinstein would love to have you on staff.
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It’s not my fault you said something both blatantly false and patently ridiculous. Face it, you lied, we caught you, time for you to crawl back into your hole until the next time you need to embarrass yourself in public.
“Petroleum, from which 99+% of pharmaceutical drugs are made, Cannot be considered a natural substance when discussing food or cures.”
Petroleum is a key component in almost anything we synthesize, that is the nature of the beast, because that is where we get the building blocks for organic compounds. The petroleum itself is broken down and the molecules rearranged so, in the end, the compounds are nearly identical to the naturally occurring ones and bear little resemblance to anything in petroleum.
Perhaps you should sign up for some remedial chem classes before taking it upon yourself to opine about this stuff.
Yes, that’s a good example, I’d say. I suppose, under the same logic, you could also include scurvy.
However, in both those cases, simply eating fresh fruit would remove the need to take any supplements at all, correct?
I guess I hesitate to consider diseases caused by poor diet alone as a great argument for supplements. Seems like a better argument for a proper diet instead.
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