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falsehoods in Megavitamin therapy article

I have detailed my arguments in the history section.

"Quackwatch" is not reliable: http://longevitylibrary.com/article/243.pdf

Of course people have not viewed that article. What it shows is that Barett frequently engages in character assasinations, does not have an authoritative background (he was a bit of a failure until he got into his recent bit of hucksterism), that there are a plethora of peer reviewed studies on Pubmed supporting CAM, that there are authoritative sources completely refuting Barett on many of his major points, and that he has shamelessly libeled his opponents, as exposed in court cases. It uses facsimilies of primary documents from a recent court case to prove it's point.

For the various vitamin citations, I have given mainstream medical publications that refute the other arguments. The citation on Schizophrenia shows that vitamins do indeed help prevent mental illness - hence refuting the fundamental objections to orthomolecular medicine.

For some reason, the "doctor yourself" website has been deemed "unreliable". Hoaxers like Stephen Barett are given ample space. Nevertheless, the doctor yourself website has an excellent overview of this insanity. I will post just the beginning of the article: http://www.doctoryourself.com/safety.html

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.

How to Make People Believe Any Anti-Vitamin Scare It Just Takes Lots of Pharmaceutical Industry Cash

by Andrew W. Saul, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 20, 2011

Recent much trumpeted anti-vitamin news is the product of pharmaceutical company payouts. No, this is not one of "those" conspiracy theories. Here's how it's done:

1) Cash to study authors. Many of the authors of a recent negative vitamin E paper (1) have received substantial income from the pharmaceutical industry. The names are available in the last page of the paper (1556) in the "Conflict of Interest" section. You will not see them in the brief summary at the JAMA website. A number of the study authors have received money from pharmaceutical companies, including Merck, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, AstraZeneca, Abbott, GlaxoSmithKline, Janssen, Amgen, Firmagon, and Novartis.

2) Advertising revenue. Many popular magazines and almost all major medical journals receive income from the pharmaceutical industry. The only question is, how much? Pick up a copy of the publication and count the pharmaceutical ads. The more space sold, the more revenue for the publication. If you try to find their advertisement revenue, you'll see that they don't disclose it. So, just count the Pharma ads. Look in them all: Readers Digest http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n11.shtml , JAMA, Newsweek, Time, AARP Today, NEJM, Archives of Pediatrics. Even Prevention magazine. Practically any major periodical.

3) Rigged trials. Yes, it is true and yes it is provable. In a recent editorial, we explained how trials of new drugs are often rigged at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v04n20.shtml . Studies of the health benefits of vitamins and essential nutrients also appear to be rigged. This can be easily done by using low doses to guarantee a negative result, and by biasing the interpretation to show a statistical increase in risk.

4) Bias in what is published, or rejected for publication. The largest and most popular medical journals receive very large income from pharmaceutical advertising. Peer-reviewed research indicates that this influences what they print, and even what study authors conclude from their data. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v05n02.shtml .

5) Censorship of what is indexed and available to doctors and the public. Public tax money pays for censorship in the largest public medical library on the planet: the US National Library of Medicine (MEDLINE/PubMed). http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n03.shtml. See also: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n05.shtml.

Don't Believe It?

How well were these pro-vitamin, anti-drug studies covered in the mass media? •A Harvard study showed a 27% reduction in AIDS deaths among patients given vitamin supplements. (2) •There have been no deaths from vitamins in 27 years. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v07n05.shtml •Antibiotics cause 700,000 emergency room visits per year, just in the US. (3) •Modern drug-and-cut medicine is at least the third leading cause of death in the USA. Some estimates place medicine as the number one cause of death. (4) •Over 1.5 million Americans are injured every year by drug errors in hospitals, doctors' offices, and nursing homes. If in a hospital, a patient can expect at least one medication error every single day. (5) •More than 100,000 patients die every year, just in the US, from drugs properly prescribed and taken as directed. (6)

Double Standard

Countless comedians have made fun of the incompetent physician who, when called late at night during a life- threatening disease crisis, says, "take two aspirin and call me in the morning." It's no longer funny. One of the largest pharmaceutical conglomerates in the world ran prime- time national television commercials that declared: "Bayer aspirin may actually help stop you from dying if you take it during a heart attack." The company also promotes such use of its product on the Internet. http://www.wonderdrug.com/ , formerly http://www.bayeraspirin.com/news/heart_attack.htm

Daily Aspirin Use Linked With Pancreatic Cancer

Here's something you may have not seen. Research has shown that women who take just one aspirin a day, "which millions do to prevent heart attack and stroke as well as to treat headaches - may raise their risk of getting deadly pancreatic cancer. . . . Pancreatic cancer affects only 31,000 Americans a year, but it kills virtually all its victims within three years. The study of 88,000 nurses found that those who took two or more aspirins a week for 20 years or more had a 58 percent higher risk of pancreatic cancer." (7) Women who took two or more aspirin tablets per day had an alarming 86 percent greater risk of pancreatic cancer.

Study author Dr. Eva Schernhammer of Harvard Medical School was quoted as saying: "Apart from smoking, this is one of the few risk factors that have been identified for pancreatic cancer. Initially we expected that aspirin would protect against pancreatic cancer."

How about that.

Say: What if there was one, just one case of pancreatic cancer caused by a vitamin? What do you think the press would have said about that?

The fact is, vitamins are known to be effective and safe. They are essential nutrients, and when taken at the proper doses over a lifetime, are capable of preventing a wide variety of diseases. Because drug companies can't make big profits developing essential nutrients, they have a vested interest in agitating for the use of drugs and disparaging the use of nutritional supplements.

(Orthomolecular Medicine News Service editor Andrew W. Saul taught nutrition, health science and cell biology at the college level, and has published over 100 reviews and editorials in peer-reviewed publications. He is author or coauthor of ten books and is featured in the documentary film Food Matters. His website is http://www.doctoryourself.com .)

References:

1. Klein EA, Thompson Jr, IM, Tangen CM et al. JAMA. 2011;306(14):1549-1556. http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/306/14/1549

2. Fawzi WW, Msamanga GI, Spiegelman D, Wei R, Kapiga S, Villamor E, Mwakagile D, Mugusi F, Hertzmark E, Essex M, Hunter DJ. A randomized trial of multivitamin supplements and HIV disease progression and mortality. N Engl J Med. 2004 Jul 1;351(1):23-32.

3. Associated Press, Oct 17, 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15305033/

4. Null G, Dean C, Feldman M, Rasio D. Death by medicine. J Orthomolecular Med, 2005. 20: 1, 21-34. http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/2005/pdf/2005-v20n01-p021.pdf

5. The Associated Press. Drug errors injure more than 1.5 million a year. July 20, 2006. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13954142

6. Leape LL. Institute of Medicine medical error figures are not exaggerated. JAMA, 2000. Jul 5;284(1):95-7; Leape LL. Error in medicine. JAMA, 1994. Dec 21;272(23):1851-7; Lazarou J, Pomeranz BH, Corey PN. Incidence of adverse drug reactions in hospitalized patients: a meta-analysis of prospective studies. JAMA, 1998. Apr 15;279(15):1200-5.

7. Fox M. Daily aspirin use linked with pancreatic cancer. Reuters, Oct 27, 2003. http://www.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/10/27/cancer.aspirin.reut/index.html

DEATHS FROM VITAMINS?

The American Association of Poison Control Centers, which maintains the USA’s national database from 61 poison control centers, indicates that even including intentional and accidental misuse, the number of vitamin fatalities is less than one death per year. http://www.doctoryourself.com/vitsafety.html

And, it turns out, that there is NO documented evidence that any one of those alleged "deaths" was due to a vitamin. No evidence whatsoever. http://www.doctoryourself.com/vitsafety.html

Drugs, however, are an entirely different matter:

“Harmful reactions to some of the most widely used medicines — from insulin to a common antibiotic — sent more than 700,000 Americans to emergency rooms each year, landmark government research shows.” (Associated Press, Oct 17, 2006) http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15305033/

VITAMIN BASHING IS NONSENSE

The news media can be absolutely relied on to trumpet any allegation that vitamins are harmful. Vitamin E has been accused of actually causing deaths. Even multivitamins have been accused of causing deaths.

Baloney.

What Kind of Medical Study Would Have Grandma Believe that Her Daily Multivitamin is Dangerous?

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, October 12, 2011

by Robert G. Smith, PhD

(OMNS, Oct 12, 2011) A newly released study suggests that multivitamin and nutrient supplements can increase the mortality rate in older women . However, there are several concerns about the study's methods and significance. • The study was observational, in which participants filled out a survey about their eating habits and their use of supplements. It reports only a small increase in overall mortality (1%) from those taking multivitamins. This is a small effect, not much larger than would be expected by chance. Generalizing from such a small effect is not scientific.

•The study actually reported that taking supplements of B-complex, vitamins C, D, E, and calcium and magnesium were associated with a lower risk of mortality. But this was not emphasized in the abstract, leading the non-specialist to think that all supplements were associated with mortality. The report did not determine the amounts of vitamin and nutrient supplements taken, nor whether they were artificial or natural. Further, most of the association with mortality came from the use of iron and copper supplements, which are known to be potentially inflammatory and toxic when taken by older people, because they tend to accumulate in the body . The risk from taking iron supplements should not be generalized to imply that all vitamin and nutrient supplements are harmful.

•The study lacks scientific plausibility for several reasons. It tabulated results from surveys of 38,000 older women, based on their recall of what they ate over an 18-year period. But they were only surveyed 3 times during that period, relying only on their memory of what foods and supplements they took. This factor alone causes the study to be unreliable.

• Some of these women smoked (~15%) or had previously (~35%), some drank alcohol (~45%), some had high blood pressure (~40%), and many of them developed heart disease and/or cancer. Some preexisting medical conditions were taken into account by adjusting the risk factors, but this caused the study to contradict what we already know about efficacy of supplements. For example, the study reports an increase in mortality from taking vitamin D, when adjusted for several health-relevant factors. However, vitamin D has recently been clearly shown to be helpful in preventing heart disease and many types of cancer , which are major causes of death. Furthermore, supplement users were twice as likely to be on hormone replacement therapy, which is a more plausible explanation for increased mortality than taking supplements.

•The effect of doctor recommendations was not taken into account. By their own repeated admissions, medical doctors and hospital nutritionists are more likely to recommend a daily multivitamin, and only a multivitamin, for their sicker patients. The study did not take this into account. All it did was tabulate deaths and attempt to correct the numbers for some prior health conditions. The numbers reported do not reflect other factors such as developing disease, side effects of pharmaceutical prescriptions, or other possible causes for the mortality. The study only reports statistical correlations, and gives no plausible cause for a claimed increase in mortality from multivitamin supplements.

•The effect of education was not taken into account. When a doctor gives advice about illnesses, well-educated people will often respond by trying to be proactive. Some will take drugs prescribed by the doctor, and some will try to eat a better diet, including supplements of vitamins and nutrients. This is suggested by the study itself: the supplement users in the survey had more education than those who did not take supplements. It seems likely, therefore, the participants who got sick were more likely to have taken supplements. Because those who got sick are also more likely to die, it stands to reason that they would also be more likely to have taken supplements. This effect is purely statistical; it does not represent an increase in risk that taking supplements of vitamins and essential nutrients will cause disease or death. This type of statistical correlation is very common in observational health studies and those who are health-conscious should not be confounded by it.

•The known safety of vitamin and nutrient supplements when taken at appropriate doses was not taken into account. The participants most likely took a simple multivitamin tablet, which contains low doses. Much higher doses are also safe , implying that the low doses in common multivitamin tablets are very safe. Further, because each individual requires different amounts of vitamins and nutrients, some people must take much higher doses for best health .

Summary: In an observational study of older women in good health, it was said that those who died were more likely to have taken multivitamin and nutrient supplements than those who did not. The effect was small, and does not indicate any reason for disease or death. Instead, the study's methods suggest that people who have serious health conditions take vitamin and mineral supplements because they know that supplements can help. Indeed, the study showed a benefit from taking B-complex, C, D, and E vitamins, and calcium and magnesium. Therefore, if those wanting better health would take appropriate doses of supplements regularly, they would likely continue to achieve better health and longer life.

(Robert G. Smith is Research Associate Professor, University of Pennsylvania Department of Neuroscience. He is a member of the Institute for Neurological Sciences and the author of several dozen scientific papers and reviews.)

References:

Mursu J, Robien K, Harnack LJ, Park K, Jacobs DR Jr (2011) Dietary supplements and mortality rate in older women. The Iowa Women's Health Study. Arch Intern Med. 171(18):1625-1633.

Emery, T. F. Iron and your Health: Facts and Fallacies. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 1991.

Fairbanks, V. F. "Iron in Medicine and Nutrition." Chapter 10 in Modern Nutrition in Health and Disease, editors M. E. Shils, J. A. Olson, M. Shike, et al., 9th ed. Baltimore, MD: Williams & Wilkins, 1999.

Hoffer, A., A. W. Saul. Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone: Megavitamin Therapeutics for Families and Physicians. Laguna Beach, CA: Basic Health Publications, 2008.

Parker J, Hashmi O, Dutton D, Mavrodaris A, Stranges S, Kandala NB, Clarke A, Franco OH. Levels of vitamin D and cardiometabolic disorders: systematic review and meta-analysis. Maturitas. 2010 Mar;65(3):225-36.

Lappe JM, Travers-Gustafson D, Davies KM, Recker RR, Heaney RP. Vitamin D and calcium supplementation reduces cancer risk: results of a randomized trial. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Jun;85(6):1586-91.

Padayatty SJ, Sun AY, Chen Q, Espey MG, Drisko J, Levine M. Vitamin C: intravenous use by complementary and alternative medicine practitioners and adverse effects. PLoS One. 2010 Jul 7;5(7):e11414.

Williams RJ, Deason G. (1967) Individuality in vitamin C needs. Proc Natl Acad SciUSA.57:16381641.

Also of Interest:

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, April 29, 2010. Multivitamins Dangerous? Latest News from the World Headquarters Of Pharmaceutical Politicians, Educators and Reporters. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v06n15.shtml

HERE IS A SOURCE for reliable information from a publication that is peer-reviewed by a panel of 20 nutritionally-minded researchers and doctors who are in favor of vitamin supplementation: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtmlPottinger's cats (talk) 09:13, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

I see you didn't bother taking my advice on walls of text. Look, I'm just telling you how it is: editors are not going to spend 20 minutes reading a single post, it's just not gonna happen. If you don't tune it down then you'll likely be ignored. Secondly, quackwatch is absolutely considered an WP:RS; consensus on this was formed long, long ago and it stretches across the entire project wrt psuedo and fringe science. Nformation 09:18, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

This is why wikipedia is inaccurate on what you call "pseudo"-science - because it is permeated with the information of people with agendas, who put forth falsehoods in an attempt to destroy opponents. To support Barett is somewhat immoral, actually, because you lend credence to toxic practices while attempting to undermine safe and effective alternatives. I decided upon a compromise. I have a revision of the article that includes all the criticisms, as well as some of the other information. Some information I put forth had no criticisms against it (e.g. - the study showing that supplementation dramatically helped AIDS patients, which is quite valid), yet it was still deleted. Deletion of such pertinent information is unjustified.

What you call "pseudo"-science, particularly when it comes to these issues, is merely an effective alternative that undercuts the market shares of dominant institutions.Pottinger's cats (talk) 00:41, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

Pottinger, you really need to be careful: 1. You have libeled ("huxterism") Barrett above (that's a crime), and definitely not allowed here. It also violates our WP:BLP policy, which applies to unsourced negative information about anyone living, including other editors, so be very careful. Sources for such information must be impeccably strong! 2. Only fringe sources criticize Barrett and Quackwatch. ALL mainstream scientific, medical, university, and government sources speak favorably of Barrett and Quackwatch, for which Barrett has received numerous awards. His detractors are all fringe, and often on the wrong side of the law. 3. longevitylibrary and doctoryourself are very fringe sources that are considered quite inaccurate, both about matters of health and about Quackwatch and Barrett. There is a reason why they are critical. They have products and ideas to sell. 4. Your use of primary sources violates WP:MEDRS. For scientific information we use large reviews of numerous studies, not single studies. 5. Conspiracy theories and antimedical propaganda will only get you identified as a proponent of fringe ideas and thus you risk getting blocked for "advocacy", something we don't allow here. 6. Stick to the point of the article and the purpose of the talk page. Don't mention other things. Keep it very short and to the point. Walls of text are considered disruptive. 7. Edit warring....don't do it. If you get reverted, don't try again. Immediately take it to the talk page and discuss the matter. 8. We already know about Big Pharma. Don't forget that Big Pharma is into vitamins in a big way, and that the vitamin and supplement industry are huge and have their own agendas which are every bit as "evil" as anything from Big Pharma. Don't be naive about that. -- Brangifer (talk) 08:10, 10 January 2012 (UTC)

The information put forth in longevitylibrary and doctoryourself that we are dealing with here is independently verifiable. It's "innacuracy" seems only to stem from the fact that it puts forth information contrary to your position.

The longevitylibrary criticism of Barrett is quite valid, and puts forth well documented points: http://longevitylibrary.com/article/243.pdf

I highly recommend the above article, but also refer to the following: canlyme com/quackwatch.html

I will keep note of wikipedia policies. Thank you for reminding me of them. As for the other material - this is not a personal attack, but much of your argumentation is replete with the following logical fallacies: appeal to authority and appeal to popularity. The purveyors of these mainstream arguments, a little while ago, where destroying the career of Semmelweis.

One note though - there are several primary source studies cited on this article. They are, incidentally, in favor of one particular view.

Also, the studies I cited are consistent, and support each other.

Your comment on the "correctness" of Barrett's views can, in many cases, be shown to be invalid. For instance, Barrett is a major supporter of modern vaccines. Yet an examination of peer-reviewed studies from authoritative sources shows that not only can many vaccines be considered to be subtly lethal, but also a source for the proliferation of new diseases. See the following collection of 100 peer-reviewed studies: http://www.archive.org/details/HorrorOfVaccinationExposed

What that shows is that while standard pablum is put forth, the dark underbelly of the practice is carefully recorded, and obfuscated.

Similarly with fluoridation. Barrett is a vocal proponent of the practice. Yet the reality of fluoride being a poison was well known before it was put into the drinking water. The JAMA noted, just before U.S. drinking water became fluoridated: "Fluorides are general protoplasmic poisons, probably because of their capacity to modify the metabolism of cells by changing the permeability of the cell membrane and by inhibiting certain enzyme systems ... The sources of fluorine intoxication are drinking water containing 1 ppm or more of fluorine, fluorine compounds used as insecticidal sprays for fruits and vegetables (cryolite and barium fluosilicate) and the mining and conversion of phosphate rock to superphosphate, which is used as fertilizer. The fluorine content of phosphate rock, about 25% of the fluorine present, is volatilized and represents a pouring into the atmosphere of approximately 25,000 tons of pure fluorine annually ... The known effects of chronic fluorine intoxication are those of hypophasia of the teeth, which has been called mottled enamel, and of bone sclerosis." - Journal of the American Medical Association, editorial, September 18, 1943 (123:50): http://jama.ama-assn.org/content/123/3/150.2.short

The following clip is an experiment exposing cells to Fluoride during the time period. It also shows that government knew about the dangers of fluoride during that time period: http://www.brasschecktv.com/videos/water/fluoride-theyve-known-the-dangers-all-along-.html

For information on how this poison was marketed and the ADA bought up, see The Fluoride Deception, which has been praised by Nobel Laureates like Dr. Arvid Carlsson.

I would not consider Arvid Carlsson to be a fringe source.