Heard Anything Bad About Vitamins Lately?

[SecularMotion]

Vitamin Bashing in the Media

By golly, Lincoln was right. You really can fool some of the people all of the time. When the topic is vitamins, some of the most easily fooled are news broadcasters and newspaper reporters.

IF YOU HAVE RECENTLY HEARD THAT VITAMINS ARE HARMFUL, you may want to read this page, or at least as much of it as you need to get your perspective back.

http://www.doctoryourself.com/safety.html

[ixion]

1. Yeah, primarily on DU, of all places...

seems there's a subset of DU'ers who just love Big Med.

[Turbineguy]

2. Everybody knows....

VITAMINS ARE THE WORK OF SATAN!

[KT2000]

3. Big Pharma

has been working for years to get rid of supplements. They are getting very close to getting their wish. A July draft FDA document will move supplement testing into cost prohibitive territory. Voila! End of supplements at reasonable cost.
Media is joining the campaign with their slanted stories and hysteria.

This is so ironic considering genetically modified food products are not required to undergo safety testing. Also, personal care products are not required to undergo safety testing although they are composed of chemicals, some hazardous, that are applied to the skin and can be absorbed into the body- lipids and blood.

[PETRUS]

4. "Follow the money" rarely leads to a blind alley. nt

[laconicsax]

5. FWIW, supplements aren't required to undergo safety testing either.

Google "miracle mineral supplement" or Zicam.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

6. They must be hurting the poor things, now they get to market Ritalin and others to kids

as young as four. I find this disgusting in the extreme when other avenues exist or rather abound.

[LeftishBrit]

7. I take supplements; but I don't trust people who promote them as the cure for everything

And I note that this writer opposes vaccinations - not some vaccinations, but all vaccinations - and this makes his other views totally untrustworthy in my eyes.

[Big Blue Marble]

8. So you are saying

that one has to be right about everything to be right about anything?

[HuckleB]

9. Well, it's not BIG PHARMA that's attacking vitamins.

It's science that is repeatedly showing that supplements are unnecessary for the vast majority of people. This has the supplement industry up in arms, and thus we see anti-science OPs, such as this one, pop up at DU.

It's quite ridiculous.

[SecularMotion]

11. Truth Behind Big Pharma’s Vitamin Attack

Have you not asked yourself why vitamins (!) are suddenly an issue and who is behind it? As food is increasingly degraded, are you not aware how crucial supplementation for vital nutrients is? Are you aware that disease is an investment industry and this is in the service of it?

Huffington Post just published Women Who Take Vitamin Supplements May Have Increased Death Risk, at precisely the moment that the pharmaceutical industry is in health attack mode to limit access to nutritional supplements in the US. How coincidental! The AMA, which is heavily funded by Pharma, put out a study purporting to show that vitamins are a threat to people’s lives. The authors suggest that multivitamins “may” increase the “risk” of death.

http://www.drhotze.com/truth-behind-big-pharmas-vitamin-attack/

[HuckleB]

12. What truth?

You offer nothing but speculation pulled out of thin air.

Science has shown that most people don't need supplements. The supplement industry doesn't want that to be know.

That's the real issue. Or are you going to be fooled by BIG SUPPLEMENT'S propaganda?

You want the truth? Here it is, nice and succinct: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x110688

[laconicsax]

13. But...but....[naturalistic fallacy]...PHARMA...

[SecularMotion]

14. Did you even bother to read the link?

It's not speculation. It shows how the study on supplements is junk science.

“In the study, all of the relative risks were so low as to be statistically insignificant, and none was backed up by any medical investigation or biological plausibility study. No analysis was done on what combinations of vitamins and minerals were actually consumed, and no analysis of the cause of death was done beyond grouping for ‘cancer,’ ‘cardiovascular disease,’ or ‘other’ — there was certainly no causative analysis done. The interactions of potential compounding risk factors is always tremendously complex—and was ignored in this so-called study.”

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october152011/vitamin-study-ag.php

[HuckleB]

15. It's one study, and that's an opinion. In fact, everyone else has already noted that.

Somehow you continue to miss that main point!

It's not just about the risks. It's about the fact that all these studies show that supplements are unnecessary for the vast majority of people.

How do you miss that?

[SecularMotion]

16. One flawed study does not negate many proven benefits of vitamin use.

"The study actually finds that vitamin and mineral supplement usage is associated with healthier lifestyles and the authors fail to indicate the outcome of the combined effect of healthy lifestyles and supplement usage

At the ANH, we don’t believe the study offers any evidence that supplement usage may be dangerous – and we are aware of copious research, and decades of clinical experience, suggesting quite the opposite"

http://www.salem-news.com/articles/october152011/vitamin-study-ag.php

[HuckleB]

17. It's not one flawed study, it's what the consensus of studies show.

Again, how have you missed that?

BIG SUPPLEMENT crap: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=222x111232

More reality: http://sciencebasedlife.wordpress.com/2011/05/02/the-multi-vitamin-fallacy/

[LeftishBrit]

10. I think that if one is an extremist fanatic on health issues, then one ceases to be credible about

that subject.

It doesn't mean that NOTHING one says could be right; but I would need other sources.

And there is a lot of territory between being anti-supplements and regarding them as a cure-all. As I say, I do take supplements regularly. But I wouldn't take them as the main treatment for cancer, or as a substitute for vaccinations, or for that matter as a substitute for good diet.