AOL Shills For Big Pharma
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Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, August 7, 2008
AOL Shills For Big Pharma
(OMNS, August 7, 2008) Drug Company Propaganda on AOL’s Health Page
“AOL’s Dangerous Vitamins” (1) is loaded with much more than your recommended daily dose of misinformation. “Medical experts are concerned that you may be at risk for vitamin overload”! “Be wary of high doses”! “Increased risk of all-cause mortality”!
Yes, AOL surely wants you to stop taking vitamins. Dangerous, they say. Overdoses, they say.
Baloney. Where are the bodies? According to 24 years of nation-wide data collected by the American Association of Poison Control Centers, there is not even one death per year from vitamin “overdosing.” (2) Half of the population takes them, and the more they take, the healthier they are. (3) Vitamins have long been proven exceptionally safe, even in high doses. (4)
How come AOL does not know that vitamin supplements are safe and effective? Or do they? Let’s take a closer look. A small webpage note indicates that the “Dangerous Vitamins” article is “presented by Journey for Control.” Say, guess who “Journey for Control” really is? Click the link and see for yourself: “Journey for Control is a trademark of Merck & Co., Inc.” Yes, that is indeed the huge drug conglomerate. How about that: an anti-vitamin article promoted by a drug company.
One word question: Why? One word answer: Cash. At the Merck website, you can get a load of their dollar-driven agenda. Merck is on a “journey for control,” to be sure. They want information control to consumers. For instance, Merck believes that “Direct-to-Consumer Advertising contributes to greater public awareness about conditions and diseases, as well as available treatments.” And as for lobbying, Merck believes it just fine “where government initiatives to control health care costs and regulate the health care system will directly affect the Company’s business and the incentives for pharmaceutical innovation.”
Note that telling last phrase, “directly affect the Company’s business and the incentives for pharmaceutical innovation.” The biggest threat to big pharma profits is a healthy populace that does not use their expensive drugs. People who take more vitamins are healthier than people than people who take too few: it is just that simple. Thousands of peer-reviewed research studies show this over and over again: Vitamin therapy is very safe and very effective. Merck Pharmaceutical and their mercenary information-puppet AOL don’t much like it.
Conspiracy thinking, you say? Unfortunately, no. The US Food and Drug Administration, whose task is supposedly to regulate the drug industry, agrees that high-dose vitamin preparations are direct competition for their pet clients, the pharmaceutical industry. Nothing new there. FDA Deputy Commissioner for Policy David Adams, at the Drug Information Association Annual Meeting, back in July 12, 1993, said:
“Pay careful attention to what is happening with dietary supplements in the legislative arena… If these efforts are successful, there could be created a class of products to compete with approved drugs. The establishment of a separate regulatory category for supplements could undercut exclusivity rights enjoyed by the holders of approved drug applications.”
And the FDA Dietary Task Force Report, released June 15, 1993, said:
“The task force considered many issues in its deliberations including to ensure that the existence of dietary supplements on the market does not act as a disincentive for drug development.”
This is the real reason Merck Pharmaceutical seeks shills to generate anti-vitamin propaganda. Since Merck Pharmaceutical can’t get this control without media help, they get AOL’s editorial staff to do their work for them. There is no mistake about it: the author of “Dangerous Vitamins” is Caroline Howard, who, says her AOL bio, is a “senior editor on AOL’s Health site.” Neither her previous job experience “as photo editor for the New Yorker, Vanity Fair, AP, and the Village Voice,” nor her bachelor’s degree in social science and photography, nor even her master’s in journalism especially qualify her as a nutrition expert. And yet there it is; nutritional nonsense online for millions to see. “Dangerous Vitamins” is crude vitamin-bashing, written by AOL, bankrolled by Merck, and read by you. And your friends and your family.
It is time to say it out loud: AOL is on the take. Now you know. Click away from AOL. Get your nutrition news elsewhere, somewhere where the “information” is not bought and paid for by big pharma.
References:
(1) http://www.aolhealth.com/healthy-living/nutrition/vitamin-safety? [be sure to include the question mark in the link]
(2) Annual Reports of the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poisoning and Exposure Database (AAPCC), 3201 New Mexico Avenue, Ste. 330, Washington, DC 20016. Download any report from1983-2006 at http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/NationalPoisonDataSystem/AnnualReports/tabid/125/Default.aspx free of charge. The “Vitamin” category is usually near the end of the report.
(3) http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v03n11.shtml Block G, Jensen CD, Norkus EP, Dalvi TB, Wong LG, McManus JF, Hudes ML. Usage patterns, health, and nutritional status of long-term multiple dietary supplement users: a cross-sectional study. Nutr J. 2007 Oct 24;6(1):30
(4) http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/index.shtml
Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org
The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.
Editorial Review Board:
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
Damien Downing, M.D.
Harold D. Foster, Ph.D.
Steve Hickey, Ph.D.
Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
James A. Jackson, PhD
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.
Erik Paterson, M.D.
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D.
Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org
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THE POWER OF VITAMINS
By William Thomas
http://www.willthomasonline.net/willthomasonline/Vitamin_Power.html
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, August 11, 2008
Way Too Many Prescriptions
(OMNS, August 11, 2008) Vitamin Therapy Safer, More Effective
Half of all Americans are on drugs: prescription drugs. It’s true, says the Associated Press (14 May 2008): “Half of all insured Americans are taking prescription medicines regularly for chronic health problems.” That is nothing to be proud of.
Among the very most prescribed of all are drugs to lower “bad” LDL cholesterol. Patients taking pharmaceuticals trying to do that are being mistreated. Why? Because niacin (vitamin B-3) in high doses is just as effective, much cheaper, and most importantly, far safer. Niacin raises beneficial HDL levels better than any drug. (1) It also dramatically lowers triglycerides.
The New York Times agrees, saying: “An effective HDL booster already exists. It is niacin, the ordinary B vitamin. Niacin can increase HDL as much as 35 percent when taken in high doses, usually about 2,000 milligrams per day . . . and it has been shown to reduce serum levels of artery-clogging triglycerides as much as 50 percent.” The president of the American College of Cardiology, Dr. Steven E. Nissen, said, “Niacin is really it. Nothing else available is that effective.” (2)
Indeed, niacin is it. Niacin is cheaper, safer and more effective. (3) So why are cholesterol-lowering drugs pushed anywhere and everywhere? Professor of medicine Dr. B. Greg Brown offered an answer: “If you’re a drug company, I guess you can’t make money on a vitamin.”
One reason why doctors and patients select drugs over vitamins is, said AP, “the pharmaceutical industry’s relentless advertising.” Indeed, “Americans buy much more medicine per person than any other country . . . The biggest jump in use of chronic medications was in the 20- to 44-year-old age group – adults in the prime of life – where it rose 20 percent over the (last) six years.” That is a huge increase.
Even worse than that, now one out of every four children and teenagers is taking a chronic disease drug, usually for depression, asthma, or ADHD. Pushing drug therapy for these conditions is largely based on profit, not health. The value of vitamin therapy for each of these conditions is already well established. (4)
It is time for patients to assert that they are simply not going to accept more and more drugs, at higher and higher prices, with more and more dangerous side effects. It is time to demand the proven but too-long-overlooked alternative: safe and effective nutritional treatment.
Not one of the cells in your body is made from a drug. When you see advertisements urging you to take prescription drugs for a chronic condition, ask your doctor why. Then ask for a nutritional alternative. Half of us on chronic medication means it is time to say no to drugs.
References:
(1) Alderman JD, Pasternak RC, Sacks FM, Smith HS, Monrad ES, Grossman W. Effect of a modified, well-tolerated niacin regimen on serum total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein cholesterol and the cholesterol to high density lipoprotein ratio. Am J Cardiol. 1989 Oct 1;64(12):725-9.
(2) Mason M. NY Times, January 23, 2007. An old cholesterol remedy is new again.
(3) http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n10.shtml Also vitamin E: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n01.shtml
(4) Depression: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n11.shtml
Asthma: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v01n08.shtml
Behavioral disorders: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v03n07.shtml
Research summaries at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml
Free access to full-text, peer-reviewed journal articles at http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom
OMNS Update: OMNS August 7th, 2008 release titled “AOL Shills For Big Pharma” – AOL now appears to have dropped the “Presented by Journey for Control” link to Merck Inc. from their “Dangerous Vitamins” article. The text of the article appears unchanged.
Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org
The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, August 20, 2008
VITAMIN A : Cancer Cure or Cancer Cause?
Media Tells a One-Sided Story
(OMNS, August 20, 2008) Vitamin A “pushes,” “promotes,” and even “incites” cancer growth, say the headlines! Is this yet another instance of vitamin bashing, or are you supplement-takers killing yourselves? Let’s take a look.
A few researchers are claiming that vitamin A, in a test-tube experiment, will “push” stem cells to change into cells that can build blood vessels. This, they say, may increase cancer. So when “structures similar to blood vessels developed within the tumor masses grown in culture,” they concluded that vitamin A promotes carcinogenesis. (1) That is a bit of a leap. An in vitro (test-tube) project is far from clinical proof. Even the study authors admit “vitamin A is known to be necessary for embryonic development precisely because it helps to ‘differentiate’ stem cells, pushing them to become required tissue.”
There is an anti-cancer drug that specifically acts by blocking the breakdown of retinoic acid, derived from vitamin A. This approach has been found to be “surprisingly effective in treating animal models of human prostate cancer. . . Daily injections of the agent VN/14-1 resulted in up to a 50 percent decrease in tumor volume in mice implanted with human prostate cancer cells. . . No further tumor growth was seen during the five-week study.” (2) It seems that when cancerous tumors have more vitamin A available, they shrink. And there is a good reason tumors shrink. “Keeping more retinoic acid available within cancer cells. . . redirects these cells back into their normal growth patterns, which includes programmed cell death. . . This potent agent causes cancer cells to differentiate, forcing them to turn back to a non-cancerous state.” So vitamin A seems to induce positive, healthy, cell changes. Indeed, this is why vitamin A derivatives are already in wide use to fight! skin cancer. Vitamin A fights cancer. It does not “push,” “promote,” or “incite” it.
Sensational warnings and outright misstatements that natural vitamin A may “incite” cancer actually serve to incite newspaper readers and television viewers. Upon closer examination, a “vitamin promotes cancer” study often has the appearance of being conducted to prove an intended point. As the authors fuel fears about vitamin A, they also give away their goal, in their own words stating that “these findings open a new door to drug development.” New marketing avenues for the development of patentable vitamin A-like drugs are a commercial opportunity that the pharmaceutical industry has not overlooked.
A vitamin A derivative “could protect against lung cancer development in former smokers,” says another report. (3) Significantly, the vitamin A derivative is used “combined with alpha-tocopherol (vitamin E), in order to reduce toxicity known to be associated with 13-cis-RA (the vitamin A derivative) therapy.” This illustrates why orthomolecular (nutritional) physicians do not use high doses of vitamin A by itself, but rather give it in context with other important, synergistic nutrients. A baseball team entirely made up of pitchers might get a lot of strikeouts while in the field, but not hit many home runs when at bat. All nutrients are needed in a living body. Vitamin A is an essential part of the team.
Here is an example: “A study published in the Journal of Nutritional Biochemistry found that administering both vitamin A and vitamin C to cultured human breast cancer cells was more than three times as effective than the administration of either compound alone (since) the combination of the two vitamins inhibited proliferation by 75.7 percent compared to untreated cells. . . The ability of retinoic acid (vitamin A) to inhibit tumor cell proliferation is well known, although its mechanism has not been defined. The authors suggest that the synergistic effect observed in this study is due to ascorbic acid’s ability to slow the degradation of retinoic acid, thereby increasing vitamin A’s cell proliferation inhibitory effects.” (4) Vitamin C helps vitamin A do its work even better, a clear team advantage.
Doctors’ experience and clinical evidence both show that vitamin A helps prevent cancer. This has been known for a long time. “The association of vitamin A and cancer was initially reported in 1926 when rats, fed a vitamin A-deficient diet, developed gastric carcinomas. . . The first investigation showing a relationship between vitamin A and human cancer was performed in 1941 by Abelsetal who found low plasma vitamin A levels in patients with gastrointestinal cancer.” (5) Moon et al reported daily supplemental doses of 25,000 IU of vitamin A prevented squamous cell carcinoma. And, de Klerk and colleagues reported “findings of significantly lower rates of mesothelioma among subjects assigned to retinol. . . Studies that use animal models have shown that retinoids (including vitamin A) can act in the promotion-progression phase of carcinogenesis and block the development of invasive carcinoma at several epithelial sites, including the head and neck and lung.” (5) The Linus ! Pauling Institute adds, “Studies in cell culture and animal models have documented the capacity for natural and synthetic retinoids to reduce carcinogenesis significantly in skin, breast, liver, colon, prostate, and other sites.” (6).
National data from the American Association of Poison Control Centers repeatedly fails to show even one death from vitamin A per year. (7) Vitamin A is very safe. However, pregnancy is a special case where prolonged intake of too much preformed oil-form vitamin A might be harmful to the fetus, even at relatively low levels (under 20,000 IU/day). Interestingly enough, you can get over 100,000 IU of vitamin A from eating only seven ounces of beef liver. Have you ever yet seen a pregnancy overdose warning on a supermarket package of liver?
A lack of vitamin A, especially during pregnancy, and in infancy, poses far greater risks. Deficiency of vitamin A in developing babies is known to cause birth defects, poor tooth enamel, a weakened immune system, and literally hundreds of thousands of cases of blindness per year worldwide. This is why developing countries safely give megadoses of vitamin A to newborns to prevent infant deaths and disease. (8)
There will always be people bent on believing that vitamins must be harmful, somehow. For them, it only remains to set up some test-tubes to try to prove it. Such has been done with other vitamins, perhaps most notably a famous if silly experiment that claimed that vitamin C promoted cancer. The study, reported in New Scientist, 22 September 2001, was a prime example of sketchy science carelessly reported. The article would have readers uncritically extend the questionable findings of a highly artificial, electrical-current-vibrated quartz crystal test tube study, and conclude that 2,000 milligrams of vitamin C can (somehow) do some sort of mischief to human DNA in real life. If two thousand milligrams of vitamin C were harmful, the entire animal kingdom would be dead. Our nearest primate relatives all eat well in excess of 2,000 mg of vitamin C each day. And, pound for pound, most animals actually manufacture from 2,000 to 10,000 mg of vitamin C daily, right inside their! bodies. If such generous quantities of vitamin C were harmful, evolution would have had millions of years to select against it. Same with vitamin A. If it “promoted” cancer, every animal eating it would get cancer.
They don’t, of course. And, if we consume enough vitamin A, perhaps neither do we. The NIH says, “Dietary intake studies suggest an association between diets rich in beta-carotene and vitamin A and a lower risk of many types of cancer. A higher intake of green and yellow vegetables or other food sources of beta carotene and/or vitamin A may decrease the risk of lung cancer.” (9) A study of over 82,000 people showed that high intakes of vitamin A reduce the risk of stomach cancer by one-half. (10) Dr. Jennifer Brett comments that “Vitamin A fights cancer by inhibiting the production of DNA in cancerous cells. It slows down tumor growth in established cancers and may keep leukemia cells from dividing.” (11) A derivative of the vitamin has been shown to kill CEM-C7 human T lymphoblastoid leukemia cells and P1798-C7 murine T lymphoma cells. (12)
Vitamin A is very far from being a cancer “promoter.” Rather, it is very near to the cancer solution.
References:
(1) Vitamin A Pushes Breast Cancer to Form Blood Vessel Cells. ScienceDaily, July 17, 2008. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/07/080715204719.htm
(2) Drug Slows Prostate Tumor Growth by Keeping Vitamin A Active. November 6, 2007. Findings from the AACR Centennial Conference on Translational Cancer Medicine: From Technology to Treatment, Singapore, November 4-8, 2007 http://www.aacr.org/home/public–media/news/news-archives-2007.aspx?d=922
(3) Vitamin A derivative could restore smokers’ health. http://www.in-pharmatechnologist.com/news/ng.asp?id=26231-vitamin-a-derivative
(4) http://www.lef.org/whatshot/2006_05.htm . See also: Kim KN, Pie JE, Park JH, Park YH, Kim HW, Kim MK. Retinoic acid and ascorbic acid act synergistically in inhibiting human breast cancer cell proliferation. J Nutr Biochem. 2006 Jul;17(7):454-62. Epub 2005 Nov 15.
(5) http://www.bccancer.bc.ca/PPI/UnconventionalTherapies/VitaminARetinol.htm
(6) http://lpi.oregonstate.edu/infocenter/vitamins/vitaminA/
(7) Annual Reports of the American Association of Poison Control Centers’ National Poisoning and Exposure Database (formerly known as the Toxic Exposure Surveillance System). AAPCC, 3201 New Mexico Avenue, Ste. 330, Washington, DC 20016. Download any report from1983-2006 at http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/NPDS/AnnualReports/tabid/125/Default.aspx free of charge. The “Vitamin” category is usually near the end of the report.
(8) Basu S, Sengupta B, Paladhi PK. Single megadose vitamin A supplementation of Indian mothers and morbidity in breastfed young infants. Postgrad Med J. 2003 Jul;79(933):397-402. And: Rahmathullah L, Tielsch JM, Thulasiraj RD et al. Impact of supplementing newborn infants with vitamin A on early infant mortality: community based randomized trial in southern India. BMJ. 2003 Aug 2;327(7409):254.)
(9) http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/vitamina.asp
(10) Larsson SC, Bergkvist L, Näslund I, Rutegård J, Wolk A. Vitamin A, retinol, and carotenoids and the risk of gastric cancer: a prospective cohort study. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Feb;85(2):497-503.
(11) Brett, N.D., Jennifer. “How Vitamin A Works.” 20 December 2006. HowStuffWorks.com. http://recipes.howstuffworks.com/vitamin-a.htm .
(12) Chan LN, Zhang S, Shao J, Waikel R, Thompson EA, Chan TS. N-(4-hydroxyphenyl)retinamide induces apoptosis in T lymphoma and T lymphoblastoid leukemia cells. Leuk Lymphoma. 1997 Apr;25(3-4):271-80.
For further information: Read full text, peer-reviewed nutritional research papers, free of charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/library/jom
Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org
The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.
Editorial Review Board:
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
Damien Downing, M.D.
Harold D. Foster, Ph.D.
Steve Hickey, Ph.D.
Abram Hoffer, M.D., Ph.D.
James A. Jackson, PhD
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.
Erik Paterson, M.D.
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D.
Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org