First of all, let me thank you for your warm response. You have donated nearly $2000 since my last email. Please keep your health freedom battle which we are fighting in mind and, if you haven’t done so yet, support the Natural Solutions Foundation generously. This is your battle, too, if you care about your health and your natural health choices. When was the last time you could fight the good fight and get a tax deduction on it, too!
Dr. Rima
Day 16: June 27, 2006
Today was an email and phone day: since I could not use my cell phone (stolen or lost last weekend) to get emails or make calls, I used the hotel facilities to confirm and solidify our pro health strategy for the Codex meeting. What that meant was internet at more than $10 per hour and phone calls to Africa, Asia, etc. and the US at European hotel rates! Whew! But the reason for the calls and internet connection is a very positive one: we are in the process of making sure that our pro-health allies from around the world are consolidated and coordinated, ready for action at the Codex meeting next week.
You know, some say that Codex cannot be changed from within. But they are wrong. I anticipate that Codex and the Bigs will respond to us if we are effective. I doubt that they will say, “Why thank you! How very nice of you to put things in perspective for us so that we can see how poorly we are serving health!” Rather we can expect some sort of vigorous and unpleasant response. After all, they have the money and have bought themselves the alliances which have allowed them to get this far. But as one of our legal team put it, “People with inconsistent values do not prevail. It is the ones whose values are more consistent who prevail. And the Codex forces want to appear to serve health and human well-being while not doing so. We want to serve those values in a consistent way and so we will prevail!” He is right. But our side is building momentum so we can expect a response which we will have to counter. We don’t know what it will be, but we know that it will come if we are effective.
On a personal note, it is hot and sunny here in Geneva and we found a great Swiss restaurant right next to the ancient armory in the Old City which lies in the middle of Lake Leman (Lake Geneva to everyone but the French). We had Swiss food in a Swiss outdoor bistro (at Swiss prices, I am afraid) and the experience was delightful.
Geneva is home to hundreds of international organizations so the population is richly mixed with people from all over the world enjoying the same lovely atmosphere and physical delights while speaking every imaginable language and wearing every sort of dress. Only 34% of Geneva’s population is ethnically Swiss these days so the city is remarkably cosmopolitan. When I was here 30+ years ago that was not the case and the change is fascinating.
Our hotel is, in itself, a small version of the global community which Geneva serves while a walk around the block takes you past the Kuwaiti, Canadian, Korean, Russian, Croatian permanent missions, headquarters of the WHO, International Labor Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, UN High Commission for Refugees, the International Red Cross and dozens more. Breakfast (included as it usually is in European hotels) is totally, thoroughly and completely Swiss, though. There is muesli, eggs and meats, cheeses and about a zillion types of bread plus fruit and yoghurt. Every day.
Day 17: June 28, 2006
OK. I’ll admit it. We took the day off. After only 3 hours devoted to phone and emails, we went on a tour of Monteux and the Castle at Chillon made famous by George Gordon, Lord Byron (“My head is white, but not with years, Nor grew it white in a single night As men’s have grown from sudden fears….”
Chillon, built on the site of an older castle by the Bernese a very, very long time ago, does contain a (rather sanitized) dungeon where Byron carved his name in a sandstone pillar and a gallows. It also provides a breathtaking glimpse of military dominance in a rugged and difficult country since it was placed to defend its position from both the lake side (the Bernese had longboats with 110 rowers which could load more than 600 fighting men) and the mountain side and succeeded in doing both for many hundreds of years until the Bernese simply decided not to defend their position any longer and left, freeing the prisoners and departing Geneva forever. Perhaps that’s a model we could suggest to Codex but somehow I don’t think they are quite ready to take it.
Just as the Bernese left Chillon only when it became clear to them that they were presiding over a crumbling and grumbling empire for the order to change radically, the Natural Solutions Foundation is helping those who value their food and health freedoms to become an effective force for change. In the US we are supporting the development of a legal and an intellectual challenge to a contaminated food supply. Internationally, we are helping nations to apply protective strategies to the serious health problems posed by Codex.
The Bernese didn’t leave without a struggle but today Chillon (and this part of Switzerland) are no longer occupied territories. The Prisoner of Chillon, Francois Bonivard, was thrown into prison for speaking his mind and then freed by the Bernese in 1536. We need to be freed, too, so that we can pursue our own paths to health and make our own choices in how to stay there. It’s a matter of health and of civil liberty as well.
Day 18: June 29, 2006
Well, don’t say I didn’t tell you to anticipate it! Today we learned that a brilliant voice for health, the environment and freedom has been personally blocked by the hierarchy of Codex from coming to the Codex meeting here in Geneva next week!
Corporations sponsor delegates all the time. For example, all three of the delegates from India to the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) last November in Bonn, Germany, were sponsored by the Nestle Corporation. They represented India but they were heavily influenced by their sponsor’s views on the baby food and formulas of which Nestle is a major manufacturer. IBFAN, the Non Governmental Organization (NGO) focusing on breastfeeding and infant breastfeeding substitutes sponsored delegates to the same meeting who were influenced on the opposite side of the fences to be dealt with at that meeting.
So sponsorship of delegates from countries with limited funds to participate in Codex is an accepted practice and an excellent way to make inroads at Codex since only national delegations have an effective voice. True, NGOs (which may be either industry or civil organizations), if recognized by Codex, may speak, but their voice is very small compared to the voices of countries. Only countries may introduce items, and only countries may call for a vote or carry out other important procedural maneuvers. So friendly national delegates are very important to change occurring.
Thus, we were delighted when a leading African scientist with a long history of fearlessly speaking out for health, the environment and consumer choice agreed to accept Natural Solutions Foundation sponsorship to attend the Codex meeting next week. We were even more delighted when the head of the department for which he works agreed to allow him to attend as a sponsored delegate.
And we were shocked, but not surprised, when we learned today that an absolutely unprecedented event had occurred: the 2006 Chairman of the Codex Alimentarius Commission had written a personal letter to the scientist’s Department Head and FORBIDDEN him to allow the scientist to come as a sponsored delegate since the Natural Solutions Foundation was his sponsor. That means several things:
1. Bulls eye! We are definitely having an effect and our strategy is the correct one. Otherwise there would have been no need for the hierarchy of Codex to try to interfere with it. We are clearly on the right track. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for that confirmation.
2. Codex has just publicly declared itself to be precisely the repressive, autocratic and pro-illness organization the Natural Solutions Foundation has identified it as being. It strikes out to thwart moves to change its direction toward a health-supporting one using primitive and heavy handed interventions and attempts at limiting both debate and information. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for that confirmation.
3. Codex plays dirty. Debate and discussion are not what it wants. Therefore, debate and discussion are most valuable tools. Sharing information inside of, and outside of, the confines of Codex is extremely valuable since it is what Codex fears most. The Natural Solutions Foundation has been providing options and accurate information to decision makers and grass roots in the US and abroad. This is a strategy which builds the constituency for health and health freedom at the national and at the international level. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for that confirmation.
4. We had, of course, Plan A.1 (and have Plans B, C and D) in our vest pockets, so to speak. We anticipated that, if we were on the right track and our Estimate of Situation were correct, Codex would strike out to try to limit or eliminate our effectiveness. Codex has shown us how very important strategic planning and adherence to the Principles of War are (and will be) to win this health freedom campaign. Thanks, Mr. Chairman, for that confirmation.
We will miss the intelligent, articulate and consistently audible voice of our scientist friend at this meeting. He is a fearless leader and a deep thinker. His absence will leave a hole. However, we have other delegates who are alerted to the issues and prepared to speak with equally compelling and intelligent voices. Mr. Chairman has not been able to stifle dissent so easily. What each country does remains, like a jury trial, a crap shoot. But we have worked diligently to help build the constituency which can back pro health options inside Codex and beyond. Next week will be another set of milestones in the health freedom battle but this battle will continue regardless of the direct intervention of the Codex hierarchy.
Revolutions are like that. There is a prisoner waiting to be freed here in Geneva. The day? July 4. or thereabouts. The name? Miss Freedom, Miss Health Freedom, to be precise. Let’s wish her well and support the struggle for her freedom all over this green world of ours, shall we?
Day 19: June 29, 2006
This was a strategy day with hours and hours and hours of tactical implementation to support next week’s Codex meeting from our side. After a hard day at the computer and on the phone, we took a walk to the edge of Lake Geneva for a bite of dinner: an interesting amalgam of Swiss and Chinese food concepts rolled into one Peking Duck. It was really very good and quite interesting and made a welcome change from a day inside the hotel room working on documents and options for next week and beyond.
Yes, whatever happens next week, there will certainly be a beyond! Codex is complex and health freedom is even more complex. So the Natural Solutions Foundation will be working on pro-health issues and options for a long, long time to come.
Day 19: June 30, 2006
Today was the start of the Montreux Jazz Festival and, since it is only just a few miles down the lakeshore, I had hoped we would have the time to get there today for some local experiences and some music. However, the actions of the Codex Chairman required a good deal of planning and effort so we did not have the time to get to the opening festivities today. Phone, email, creation of documents, contact with colleagues and more of same. The issues are just too important to leave to chance!
We did go out for dinner to a Singapore restaurant, though, quite close to the bus station. Across the street, next to the bars and bistros, is “The American Market” which sells all the foods we have exported to a receptive world: chips fried in fake and poisoned oils, sodas, endless artificial drinks in colors food never even thought of being, dozens and dozens of candies and cookies and cereals devoid of absolutely any nutritional value and an endless array of other food fakes. And all at a premium since they are high status “foods”. The place was packed with fast food (aka fast death).
Pay the price to eat this stuff and, in the end, you will pay the price of having eaten this stuff.
And who benefits? Why, the people who brought you the fake food and the people who are right there to collect the immense profits your preventable illness and death brings to them. You know their names: I don’t have to tell you who they are.
“The American Market” is, in fact, a prelude of things to come for the entire world’s food supply if Codex wins. That’s why we won’t let it win.
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
The medical industry has allowed itself to become the drug distribution system of the Pharmaceutical industry. And the prestigious and supposedly neutral medical journals are prime tools in that distribution system since they appear objective and are consulted by doctors for trustworthy and accurate information which they can rely upon to guide the treatment of patients. It is therefore both dangerous and ominous to consider the profound lack of objectivity and corruption which permeate even the most respectable of medical journals.
Advertising revenues for drugs keep them in business. Peer reviewers (who are supposed to keep the system honest) have considerable financial ties with pharmaceutical companies – the more revered the reviewer, the more lucrative the ties. “Research studies” are funded by the companies that stand to benefit from positive outcomes with predictable results. In fact, in many cases, senior authors put their names to research they did not conduct and articles written by company ghost writers. To make matters worse, the data of the studies are owned by contract not by the author (as the case used to be) but by the funding organization so results can be manipulated by the funder despite what the did or did not show.
FDA committee and task force members, too, have significant financial ties to industry. Drug related objectivity is, for the most part, in the mind of the beholder since it is not in the bank account of either the journal or the scientist.
Is it any wonder, then, that highly prestigious and [supposedly] objectivemedical journals participate in propagating the on-going poison press designed to wear away America’s allegiance to natural health options?
Our $20 billion per year supplement spending means that people don’t buy as many expensive and dangerous drugs as they would if they were not protecting their health naturally. That is a real problem for the illness care industry since healthy people are bad customers for the illness industry. That means that our supplement habit must be broken for current profits and the future. The Codex agenda is to making nutrients available only at doses so small they have no impact on any human being is to be brought to the US.
You see, the will of the American people and their legislators to keep DSHEA (the 1994 Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act) intact has to be broken, too. DSHEA says that nutrients are considered as foods and, as such, have no upper limit. The Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline says that nutrients are to be considered only in terms of their risk; the WHO guidance on the matter says that ANY CHANGE IN A BIO-MARKER (e.g., anything that can be measured) CAUSED BY A NUTRIENT IS AN ADVERSE EVENT!
The propaganda war is on, big time. Read what Peter Chowka, long time health journalist, has to say about the latest participation by the medical journals.
Saturday, Apr. 15, 2006
Recent Negative Studies of Alternative Medicine:
Bad Medicine or Bad Reporting?
© By Peter Barry Chowka
(April 15, 2006) In recent weeks, the news hasn’t been good for alternative medicine. First came the stories, reported prolifically in the mainstream media, that low-fat diets don’t help to prevent breast or colon cancer or heart disease. This reporting was based on three studies that were published in the February 8, 2006 issue of JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association), one of the world’s leading medical journals. That same week, another prestigious scientific publication, the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), in its February 9 issue published a study contending that one of the most commonly used herbs, saw palmetto, was no better than placebo for the treatment of benign prostatic hypertrophy or enlarged prostate.
That article was the opening salvo in a new, ongoing series of critiques of alternative medicine in the pages of the NEJM. In the February 16 issue, two studies called into question the effectiveness of using vitamin D and calcium to reduce the risks of bone fractures and colorectal cancer – conditions that have been found in previous studies to benefit from calcium and vitamin D supplementation. The following week (the February 23 issue of the NEJM) another study appeared, proclaiming the uselessness of the nutritional supplements glucosamine and chondroitin for osteoarthritis.
What these negative studies have in common is that the diets or supplements that were being tested have all been previously studied or subjected to review, with consistently positive findings. In fact, a list of the positive studies and references indicating the benefits of low-fat diets, calcium, vitamin D, saw palmetto, glucosamine, and chondroitin sulfate would be quite extensive.
But typically, as soon as the media catch wind of (or read a press release about) a negative study, they tend to exhibit selective amnesia, forgetting or ignoring all of the positive studies that preceded it.
The recent negative studies may have attracted the media’s attention because they appear to go against previously held beliefs – particularly in regard to the presumed benefits of low-fat diets and calcium/vitamin D supplementation. If the results of a new study had indicated instead that low-fat diets prevented heart disease or calcium supplements provided bone protection, they would probably never have made it on the nightly network TV newscasts or in wire service stories. Such news would have been met with a ho-hum, “What else is new?” shrug from most mainstream media producers and editors.
As in the case of any scientific study, however, the published results of these recent negative ones were not as black and white as the media portrayed them to be. The inaccurate or incomplete reporting is partly the result of the limitations of the sound-byte driven news business and also accountable to the somewhat misleading way that the researchers reported the conclusions in several of the studies.
Low-fat Diet Effects on Heart Disease and Cancer
The Women’s Health Initiative Dietary Modification Trial (which began in 1991), the source of the conclusions in the February 8 JAMA articles, was designed to determine the potential long term effects of a low-fat diet on the risk of heart disease, stroke, breast cancer, and colon cancer in 48,835 postmenopausal women, ages 50-79. The study goal was to decrease total dietary fat to 20% and increase the consumption of fruits and vegetables to five servings daily and whole grains to six servings daily. The dietary intervention group was then compared to a control group of women who were not asked to make dietary changes but who were given diet-related educational materials.
This type of study is problematic for many reasons. In the real world, an individual’s dietary changes are usually made gradually, over a long period of time. In fact, in the JAMA articles, by the sixth year of the study the participants in the low-fat dietary intervention group had only decreased their fat intake by 8.2% and the saturated fat intake (the fat most often associated with heart disease) by only 2.9%. In addition, in the low-fat group there was an average daily increase of only 1.1 servings of fruits and vegetables and 0.5 servings of whole grains. Even with these somewhat subtle dietary changes, however, there was a trend toward decreased heart disease and breast cancer incidence in the study participants who consumed the lowest levels of saturated- and trans-fats and in the ones who ate at least 6.5 servings of fruits and vegetables daily. These positive trends are important since the protective or preventive effects of a low-fat diet can take many years, if not several decades, to be fully realized.
Another significant problem with the negative JAMA studies is that the participants in the dietary-change groups were asked to reduce total dietary fat to 20%. Such a blanket recommendation does not take into account the fact that there are “good fats” and “bad fats.” Thus, this group may have been decreasing heart-healthy omega-3 fatty acids, such as the ones in salmon and other cold water fish. These same fatty acids have been found in numerous studies to help prevent cancer.
Saw Palmetto and Enlarged Prostate
The New England Journal of Medicine kicked off its latest series of articles on alternative medicine on February 9, 2006 with the publication of a study on the herb saw palmetto for the treatment of enlarged prostate (benign prostatic hyperplasia or BPH). The study’s design looked good, the dosage of saw palmetto seemed appropriate, and the herbal product that was used appeared to be of high quality. The study may have been compromised from the outset, however, by the choice of study participants – men with moderate-to-severe prostate enlargement. Previous studies on saw palmetto have usually looked at men with mild-to-moderate BPH.
The design of the February 9 NEJM study brings to mind an earlier one, published in 2002 in JAMA, on St. John’s wort for moderately severe major depression in which the dosage used was one that had been found in previous studies to benefit people with mild-to-moderate depression. Rather than confirm these findings in a group with milder depression or increase the dose to one that had been noted in clinical reports to benefit people with more severe depression, the researchers used the lower dose and then concluded that St. John’s wort was useless for the treatment of depression. A similar negative conclusion (including the failure to indicate that the study was in men with moderate-to-severe benign prostatic hyperplasia) was drawn by the saw palmetto researchers: “In this study, saw palmetto did not improve symptoms or objective measures of benign prostatic hyperplasia.” This conclusion, of course, is the bottom-line one that was fed to the media, most of whose representatives no doubt did not read or carefully analyze the study itself.
It is not unusual for the conclusions of a medical journal’s article or study, or the press release issued by the publication promoting it, to be negative, while the details of the complete study suggest a more nuanced, inconclusive, or even positive picture.
In the case of the NEJM saw palmetto study, it seems doubtful that men who have found that the herb helps to keep them from having to get up five times a night to urinate will stop taking it because of this single study. But the negative reporting will likely deter others who might have experienced benefits from using this safe and effective herbal alternative.
Calcium and Vitamin D for Decreasing
Fracture Risk and Preventing Colon Cancer
The fact that calcium and vitamin D are important to bone health is fairly well established accepted. Less widely known, but supported by significant positive research, is the fact that both calcium and vitamin D appear to offer protection against certain types of cancer, including colon cancer. Therefore, it was surprising when the news reported that a study in the February 16 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine had concluded that calcium and vitamin D do not prevent colorectal cancer or bone fractures.
One of the more questionable reports in the print media about the February 16 study was published in The New York Times on February 15. The Times article, “Study Finds Calcium Supplements Don’t Prevent Broken Bones,” opened with the following statement: “Calcium and vitamin D supplements increased the risk of kidney stones but did not prevent broken bones or colorectal cancer in middle-aged and elderly women, according to an extensive study whose results are to be published Thursday.”
It’s not hard to understand why the media would get it so wrong since the concluding statement in the official abstract of the published study, “Calcium plus Vitamin D Supplementation and the Risk of Fractures,” states: “Among healthy, postmenopausal women, calcium with vitamin D supplementation resulted in a small but significant improvement in hip bone density, did not significantly reduce hip fracture, and increased the risk of kidney stones.”
A closer look at this study reveals that it was also part of the Women’s Health Initiative (described above in the section on the low-fat diet studies). The bone fracture-colon cancer study included 36,282 postmenopausal women, ages 50-79 years. They were randomly assigned to receive either 1,000 mg of calcium in the form of calcium carbonate and 400 IU of vitamin D or placebo pills. The study’s protocol was confusing and the conclusions raised more questions than they answered.
Many of the women (16,089) were also enrolled in the hormone replacement arm of the study, confounding the results because hormone replacement can have a significant effect on bone density. Women in both the calcium/vitamin D group and the placebo group were also allowed to take personal calcium supplements (up to 1,000 mg daily) and vitamin D supplements (up to 600 IU daily – 1,000 IU daily after 1999) outside of the study as well as other medications for bone health.
Despite all of these significant variables, the study resulted in a 12% overall lower rate of hip fracture in the calcium and vitamin D treated group compared with the placebo group. The study’s authors deemed this result to be not statistically significant. However, when the supplement group was analyzed for compliance it was determined that participants in the group who took at least 80% of the assigned supplements had a 29% decrease in hip fractures. A major question is why non-compliers were even included in the final analysis. In addition, when the women were stratified according to age, those age 60 and older – the group most likely to suffer from hip fractures – experienced a 21% decrease in hip fractures, even when the study didn’t remove the non-compliers.
The calcium/vitamin D group had a 17% greater likelihood of kidney stones. While the increase in kidney stone rate was reported widely, none of the positive results reached the attention of the mainstream media, even though the increased likelihood of kidney stones was less than the improvement in the hip fracture prevention rate. It should also be noted that the form of calcium used in the study was calcium carbonate, one of the more poorly absorbed forms of calcium. Had the researchers used a more absorbable form of calcium, for example, calcium citrate, they would probably have gotten better results and even decreased the risk of kidney stones, since citric acid (citrate) has been found to help prevent the most common type of kidney stone.
Since this same group of people was analyzed for the effects of calcium and vitamin D on colorectal cancer, some of the same problems with the study design apply – for instance, the fact that the placebo group was also allowed to take significant amounts of personal vitamin D and calcium. In addition, the study lasted seven years and, due to the length of time it takes for cancers to develop, this may have been too short a period to observe a truly beneficial effect of vitamin D and calcium in preventing cancer – a fact that was acknowledged by the researchers (but not in most media reporting).
Glucosamine and Chondroitin for Arthritis
In the study on glucosamine and chondroitin published in the February 23 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, these two commonly used nutritional supplements for arthritis were compared to the anti-inflammatory medication celecoxib or to placebo. The study randomly assigned 1,583 people with osteoarthritis of the knee to receive 1,500 mg glucosamine HCl, 1,200 mg chondroitin sulfate, a combination of glucosamine and chondroitin, 200 mg celecoxib, or placebo for 24 weeks. People in all groups were allowed to take up to 4,000 mg acetaminophen (Tylenol) daily if necessary. The groups were further divided according to pain severity with 1,229 in a group with mild pain and 354 in a group with moderate-to-severe pain.
The study design was reasonable, although one might ask why glucosamine HCl was used, rather than glucosamine sulfate, since the majority of positive studies of glucosamine for arthritis used the sulfate form. The results reported by the researchers seemed accurate and relatively unbiased, and included the following conclusions: “Glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate alone or in combination did not reduce pain effectively in the overall group of patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. Exploratory analyses suggest that the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin sulfate may be effective in the subgroup of patients with moderate-to-severe knee pain.”
In fact, the combination supplement was significantly effective in the group of participants that needed it most – the ones with the most severe pain. On the scales used to analyze benefit, those taking the combination of glucosamine and chondroitin experienced significant benefit – 24.9 percentage points higher than placebo. This improvement was compared to the effects observed in the group taking the anti-inflammatory drug celecoxib that resulted in only 15.1 percentage points improvement over placebo. Yet, the mainstream media reportage on this study was simply that glucosamine and chondroitin don’t work for arthritis. There was no mention that it does work in those who need it most or that celecoxib may not work so well, either.
Recently the Wall Street Journal published the most outrageous print attack yet on your health and mine. This ordinarily respected newspaper chose to tout highly questionable science to tell us that vitamins pose dangers to our health and chances of survival. BALDERDASH
I hope that the article that follows will spur you to take vitamins and minerals to protect your health and well being. Please be aware that the level of under nutrition which follows from bad science like this and treating vitamins and minerals as dangers the way the Codex Vitamin and Mineral Guideline does, is the best way I know of to insure that you will develop otherwise preventable serious diseases, get sick and stay that way. The propaganda machine is working hard to convince you that nutrients are somehow bad for you. This is part of the effort to soften you up to accept a “harmonized” approach to Codex. That way, when you can’t get effective nutrients you won’t miss them because the big lie (“Nutrients are dangerous since they cause changes in the human body”) has become the way most people have been trained to view things. Those who lament their loss will be marginalized by mass media propaganda pieces like the one in the Wall Street Journal. Never mind that they are based on bad (or no) science. They are part of a magnificently orchestrated campaign to make optimal nutrition (which I believe requires nutrient supplementation in a toxic world) a non-option for you and your family.
Just as I was sitting down to write a response to this poppycock, I received an email which contained an excellent summary of why this is bad science and very, very poor public policy. This article was written by Jean Carper and forwarded to me by Elwood Richard, a long time supporter of health and health freedom.
I include the complete article here: it is well worth reading and sharing with your friends and those in your circle of influence.
Special Report : The media strikes again
A report in the Wall Street Journal unfairly attacks vitamins as doing more harm than good, adding more fuel to the vitamin wars and getting many facts wrong. Here’s the real truth.
http://www.stopagingnow.com/pages/specialreport/wsj
The WSJ’s Fictitious “Case Against Vitamins”
By Jean Carper
Vitamin opponents’ efforts to steer you away from supplements have taken a frightening new direction. Attacks on vitamins are escalating from allegations of merely “useless” to “extremely dangerous.” This alarming message is central to “The Case Against Vitamins,” in the Wall Street Journal, March 20, 2006. The subhead sets the tone: “Recent studies show that many vitamins not only don’t help. They may actually cause harm.”
Should you throw away your vitamins? No. In assembling its “case,” to scare people away from vitamins, the WSJ said much that is not scientifically accepted and left much unsaid. It cites carefully selected and sometimes outdated studies without proper perspective; misses or omits studies that contradict the premise, and fails to give a fair analysis by respected vitamin experts, choosing instead, sources of lesser expertise, credibility and credentials. Whether the bias is careless or reflects a mindset friendly to extensive pharmaceutical advertising, is impossible to tell.
Here’s how the Wall Street Journal got it completely wrong about vitamins E, A and C, on which they based the major part of their “case.”
Vitamin E in Wonderland
You might suspect the fix is in when the first person quoted by the WSJ is cardiologist Edgar R. Miller, author of one of the most criticized and denounced studies ever done on vitamin E. Eminent vitamin E researchers called his analysis, claiming common doses of vitamin E boosted death rates 4% to 6%, a case study in the misuse of statistics with laughable conclusions. If it were true, this absurd conclusion means taking vitamin E is more deadly than smoking, points out Jeffrey Blumberg, chief of antioxidant research at Tufts University. Dr. Blumberg and other vitamin E luminaries were so appalled, they signed a full page ad that ran in the New York Times, the Washington Post and USA Today, denouncing Miller’s assertions that vitamin E was unsafe.
Dr. Blumberg also teamed up with 12 other international authorities to refute that vitamin E is unsafe at doses under 1600 IU a day, in the April, 2005 issue of the prestigious American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
Among those condeming Miller’s conclusions are world-renowned antioxidant and vitamin E researchers, Lester Packer PhD, University of Southern California, and Maret Traber, PhD, Oregon State University and authority on vitamin E toxicity for the National Academy of Sciences. NIH’s head of alternative and complementary medicine also told me he didn’t believe the study.
Miller’s study, in fact, was exposed as bogus soon after it came out, its credibility destroyed by a major NIH study that found NO serious adverse effects, let alone death, in 40,000 women who took 600 IU of vitamin E every other day for ten years! If vitamin E was harmful or deadly, it surely would have shown up in this largest, longest vitamin E test ever done. Such a massive clinical trial overwhelmingly trumps previous studies like Miller’s, and is irrefutable testimony to the utter safety of vitamin E at common doses, says Dr. Traber.
More remarkable, contrary to Miller’s false predictions of death from vitamin E, the NIH study revealed it as an astonishing lifesaver. “It’s the most exciting findings about vitamin E in 10 years!” said Dr. Traber.
The truth is heart deaths dropped 24% in women who took vitamin E. And it gets better. In women 65 and over, prime targets of heart attacks, vitamin E slashed death rates an incredible 49%–nearly in half!, the NIH study showed. This means taking vitamin E might save over 200,000 women a year from heart disease deaths, figures Dr. Traber.
Imagine. If a drug did that, it would be heralded as a miracle cure; doctors would wildly prescribe it, and its stock would soar, says Traber. But without huge drug money behind it, vitamin E is unfairly trashed as dangerous by the press and blacklisted by doctors, all to the detriment of people who could benefit greatly from it.
The Vitamin A Tales:
After repeating the widely-published hazards of high doses of beta carotene for current smokers, the WSJ “Case Against Vitamins,” takes on vitamin A as cause of hip fractures, citing a 2002 Harvard nurses’ study, that “associated” high vitamin A from foods, multivitamins and supplements, with a 48% higher risk for hip fractures. It is naive to use this study to slam supplements, since the greatest vitamin A threat came from consuming too much liver, not supplements. Nor was vitamin A a fracture hazard to women on estrogen, suggesting more complex factors than vitamin A.
Nor is the Harvard indictment of vitamin A the last word on the issue. Much research contradicts it. A 2004 large-scale, 9.5-year study of 34,703 postmenopausal women by the University of Minnesota, cleared vitamin A, in both supplements and food, of promoting fractures. Specifically researchers made clear there was “no evidence” that women who took the highest doses of vitamin A supplements were most apt to break a hip. (Lim LS, Osteoporos Int, 2004 Jul;15(7):552-9)
Most important, better-designed studies overshadow and refute the 4-year-old Harvard study that the WSJ relied on to build its anti-vitamin A case, and even suggest the opposite: that higher vitamin A, surprisingly, may also be tied to fewer fractures.
The difference comes from the way the study is designed. More current sophisticated research compares an individual’s actual blood level of vitamin A with his or her bone density and fracture history. The Harvard study simply asked women what foods they ate, then estimated their vitamin A intake based on food-nutrient tables, and compared this with the number of fractures in the women. Obviously, this is a crude and unreliable measure of vitamin A status, compared with actual blood tests.
In several studies using blood tests, the vitamin A threat disappears or is turned upside down. At least, three recent studies that sampled blood for vitamin A content, either find no bone-hazard from vitamin A–or a LOWER risk of fractures.
British researchers at the University of Sheffield, scrutinized the blood of some 1200 women over age 75, searching for evidence that vitamin A induced fractures. No such thing. Women with the highest blood levels of vitamin A were 15% LESS apt to suffer a fracture of any bone, including the hip, than those with the lowest blood vitamin A. Women taking multivitamins (including vitamin A) or vitamin-A-dense cod liver oil were even better off–24% less apt to break a bone. (Barker ME, J Bone Miner Res.2005 Jun;20 (6):913-20.
At New York’s Columbia University, a similar 22-year long study of 2799 American women ages 50 to 74, found that fracture risk nearly doubled in women with both the lowest and highest blood concentrations of vitamin A, adding more confusion and controversy to the debate. (Opotowsky AR, Am J Med 2004 Aug 1;117(3): 169-74)
In a side note, a recent Italian study showed that women with osteoporosis had lower blood levels of vitamin A, as well as vitamin C and E, suggesting lower antioxidant defenses against free radical damage may be involved in bone destruction and accelerated aging. (Maggio D.,J clin Endocrinol Metab 2003 Apr;88(4):1523-7).
Bottom Line: The issue of vitamin A and bones is unsettled and highly debatable. The evidence is conflicting and confusing. The WSJ’s black and white “Case Against Vitamins,” gave no indication of this. It presented vitamin A as a bone-hazard, case closed, hyping a fear of vitamin A among readers, when that is not an accepted scientific finding by any stretch. The jury is still out, and it could go several ways.
Vitamin C as Villain? Amazing
“Like other vitamin studies, research into vitamin C has been disappointing,” recites the WSJ’s Case Against Vitamins” saying it might not prevent colds or fight cancer, as Nobel prize-winner Linus Pauling promised it would 30 years ago. To press the point further, the WSJ article resurrects studies, asserting vitamin C can promote cancer and even death.
On the contrary, a new Japanese study says taking 500 mg of vitamin C daily cut odds of getting three or more colds over 5 years by 66%.
But that’s of small consequence compared with dazzling new research identifying vitamin C as a promising new cancer drug. Excitement over the anticancer properties of vitamin C is dramatically escalating, rather than diminishing, among top-drawer scientists. It’s hard to fathom how the Wall Street Journal missed this fact, since a quick search turns up dozens of studies of vitamin C’s remarkable abilities to stop cancer.
Far from encouraging cancer growth, as the Wall Street Journal’s outdated information asserted, vitamin C selectively targets and kills cancer cells, leaving normal cells unharmed, says groundbreaking research by Mark Levine, MD at the National Institutes of Health. High doses of vitamin C rapidly killed 100% of human lymphoma cells, reports Levine, as well as 9 other cancer cells, including breast, ovarian, lung, kidney and colon.
Moreover, Levine notes that some doctors already give high- dose intravenous vitamin C to help stop cancer. The evidence for increased survival and safety is so impressive, even in advanced late-stage cancer, that Levine has called for a “re-evaluation of vitamin C as cancer therapy.”
Levine explains that for years researchers missed Pauling’s point and failed to understand precisely how vitamin C destroys cancer cells and why very high doses are needed. In original studies, Pauling administered 10,000 milligrams of vitamin C a day intravenously to terminal cancer patients for about 10 days, and then high oral doses of C afterward. Those on vitamin C improved and survived longer. When Mayo Clinic researchers set out to verify Pauling’s findings, they gave high oral doses, not intravenous doses, and concluded it didn’t work. However, it is impossible, Levine notes, to raise vitamin C blood levels to cancer-lethal doses orally. The vitamin C vanishes too quickly. Doses deadly to cancer cells can be achieved only intravenously by jacking up blood levels of vitamin C 25 times higher than oral doses do.
For example, doctors at the University of Kansas gave two women with stage 3 ovarian carcinoma 60,000 mg of vitamin C intravenously twice a week, as well as conventional chemotherapy. Their tumors vanished and they showed no signs of cancer 3 1/2 years later. The doctors are now conducting a randomized test of high vitamin C (and other antioxidants) along with chemotherapy in women newly diagnosed with ovarian cancer.
More amazing: Dr. Levine and NIH colleagues personally documented three cases of advanced cancer in which vitamin C shrank tumors, dramatically increasing survival.
• A 49-year-old man diagnosed with terminal bladder cancer in 1996 declined chemotherapy in favor of high-dose vitamin C infusions. Nine years later he is alive and cancer-free.
• A 66-year-old woman with an aggressive lymphoma and a “dismal prognosis” in 1995, also rejected chemotherapy, but had radiation, and intravenous high-dose vitamin C. She, too is alive 10 years later.
• A 51-year-old woman with kidney cancer that had spread to her lungs, opted for alternative therapy, including high-dose intravenous vitamin C given twice weekly for 10 months. Two months later, scans showed the tumors were gone. Her cancer remained in remission for four years. A smoker, she died of lung cancer that did not respond to the same therapy.
The Wall Street Journal is correct in saying that many doctors oppose use of antioxidants, including vitamin C, during chemotherapy, fearing interference with treatment. But experts point out the idea is only “theoretical,” and has no evidence to justify it. The WSJ assertion that antioxidants may “promote some cancer and interfere with treatments,” is without scientific merit. The one study that tested the theory found no difference in outcome–and certainly no worsening from antioxidants.
The latest evidence from the top experts at the National Institutes of Health not only rebuts the fictitious danger of vitamins to cancer patients, but shows that antioxidants, notably vitamin C, have the power to shrink cancer, produce remissions and dramatically extend life of even advanced cancer patients. Although it is still unclear how effective lower doses of vitamin C may be in preventing or fighting cancer, it is implausible that they could be harmful, considering that massive doses are not and, in fact, are so beneficial.
Should we hold our collective breath for the WSJ to do a major story on the ascent of vitamin C as a potentially powerful, inexpensive and incredibly safe cancer “drug?” Imagine the impact of that on pharmaceutical profits.
< < END
In the US we have a precious (and much attacked) law called DSHEA (the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act passed in 1994) which holds that nutrients are foods and, as such, can have no upper limits set upon them. Codex holds the opposit: the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline says that nutrients should have upper limits assessed by Risk Assessment, a technique designed to determine just how high a toxic dose can be before it produces changes in your body and then set limits 100 lower than that.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently produced a Workshop document to help [sic] Codex with the application of Risk Assessment to nutrients. This document defines an
as ANY change in ANYTHING that can be measured in a human (a biomarker). So any change, whether positive or negative, which is brought about by a nutrient is an adverse event under Codex!
What to do? Several things.
First, inform yourself. Make sure you watch “Nutricide: the DVD” and tell your friends about it or arrange a public showing in your church, club or school. Download a copy of the highly informative Codex e-Book which was presented to decision makers in Africa last month. It contains a wealth of information on the solution to the Vitamin and Mineral Guideline and an in-depth essay on nutritional medicine you need.
Second, take action. Sign the Citizens Petition and join the thousands of others who are challenging the US Government’s Codex policy. Then “Ride the Freedom Mouse” to let Congress know that your health and health freedom is really important to you.
Oh, yes, one more action step: send a letter to the FDA and one to Congress to prevent Wyeth from smashing the competition that natural molecules offer to toxic synthetic hormones. You see, pharmaceutical giant Wyeth (which makes Premarin and Prempro) is attempting to pressure the FDA to ban its competitors, Bio-Identical Hormones. Premarin (synthetic estrogen made from pregnant mares urine) and Prempro (the synthetic estrogen plus synthetic progesterone called “progestin”) are so toxic that a National Institutes of Health drug trial using these two hormones which involved 168,000 menopausal women was halted early (2002) to protect women from the increased risks of heart disease, breast cancer, blood clots, blindness and strokes which they carry with them although they have no clinical benefit whatsoever.
Millions of women got the message and switched to safe, natural hormones which do protect them but don’t carry the risks of the synthetic hormones. Now, four years later, Wyeth has hijacked the Citizens Petition process to work its corporate magic: wave a wand and take away safe, inexpensive options leaving only dangerous, expensive drugs.
Hmmm. Sounds a lot like Codex to me.
Not happy with this turn of events? Support the Natural Solutions Foundation with your contribution or monthly pledge (donate $50 or more and we will send you a letter for your tax records stating the contribution is tax deductible).
Thanks. Your activism is essential to our success.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Laibow
PS: More on Africa to follow. I’ve been really, really swamped!
On Saturday, November 19, 2005 I attended the Codex Working Group on Infant Formulas which operates as part of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Food for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU).
It was a fascinating day (if you like watching decision made which will potentially impact negatively on every single child on the planet who is not breast fed. This working group is setting standards which all manufacturers who ship formula internationally must follow AND which those countries unwise enough to pass these regulations as their own domestic laws on infant formula must follow, too.
Here is the highlight of the day:
Dr. Barbara Schneeman, Director of the Dietary Supplements Department of the FDA urged the Working Group to allow fructose in baby formula. Now that is quite fascinating, really, because our own FDA prohibited the use of fructose in the beverage supply of the US because it was high in empty calories, and likely to bring about preventable diabetes, obesity (and with it cancer and cardiovascular disease) and a host of other ill health effects, especially in children and adolescents. Manufacturers, whose bottom line is the bottom line, protested and forced the FDA to abandon its health-protective stance by allowing fructose (also known by names such as “high fructose corn syrup”) into the food supply BECAUSE CODEX ALLOWS FRUCTOSE.
So the FDA knows full well that fructose is associated with a decline in health associated with an increase in obesity and diabetes. Remember, the US is battling an epidemic of juvenile and adult obesity and another [related] one of juvenile and adult diabetes, both preventable disorders.
So why would Dr. Schneeman argue for the inclusion of this health-degrading substance in baby formula? Babies need about 670 calories per 100 grams of formula, according to the working group (older and younger babies do not seem to get special nutritional recognition: perhaps they figure that older babies will just tank up on more fluid in order to get more of what they need). How many of those calories should be from empty, dangerous, insulin-spiking sweeteners for which there is no nutritional requirement whatsoever?
And how many of those calories should be for something that teaches babies to demand sweet foods despite the fact that the perfect baby food, breast milk, does not have fructose in it?
Oh, yes, the fructose generally comes from corn. And, oh, yes, the corn is generally genetically modified (GM). And, oh, yes, the genetically modified corn and anything made from it does not have to be tested for safety before it is released into the food supply. Of course, the Working Group on Infant Formula has already approved GM soy for use in infant formula. The recent study Russian study showing that over 55% of rat pups whose mothers were fed GM soy died after failing to gain weight properly should suggest some caution to a truly “science based” process such as Codex claims to be.
Tragically, it would appear that the only science upon which Codex is based in the science of International Banking.
What can you do about it? Several things. Go to www.HealthFreedomUSA.org and take the following steps:
• Join the Citizen Petition (a legal challenge to the US government policy on Codex. (Do not be misled by those who mistakenly believe its purpose is to “persuade” government bureaucrats since whether they are persuaded or not is irrelevant to the legal process set in motion by the Citizen Petition. The more people who do so, the stronger our case before Congress.
• Tell Congress that you want a Congressional Briefing on Codex and tell them that you want Dr. Rima E. Laibow, MD, Medical Director of the Natural Solutions Foundation, to help them organize the briefing.
• Write to Congress to support and oppose the bills that will determine your health freedom by using our email engine. Let Congress know that your health and health freedom is important to you!
• Use any (or all) of several methods to support the critical work of the Natural Solutions Foundation
o Do your personal and holiday shopping at www.EatSafeEatSmart.com, your source for GM-free, organic personal products, snacks, foods and products. Every purchase helps to support the Natural Solutions Foundation
o Send your unwanted treasures and collectables (each worth at least $30) to us at the Dump Fund: take the item(s) to any common carrier (Federal Express, UPS, DHL, etc.), (you can have them pack it or do it yourself) and ship it to the D.U.M.P. Fund, at: NSF, 297 Passaic Avenue, Fairfield, NJ 07004. Questions? Email us at infor@dumpfund.org. You will get a letter for the sale price of your tax deductible donation for your records.
o Make a donation to us by visiting www.HealthFreedomUSA.org/donate.shtml/.
You can be sure we will keep you posted during the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Food for Special Dietary Uses this next week. We’ll keep you posted on everything Dr. Grossklaus, the “Dr. Strangelove of Nutrition” does and says.
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
If anyone had a shred of doubt that Codex is creeping toward us on all of its loathsome legs as quickly as possible, rather like a venomous centipede, that doubt should vanish by the time you finish this blog. Each of the segments of the Codex creature may appear to be unaware of what the others are doing, but the net result is forward movement coordinated by some ganglion of control somewhere. Where? I don’t know, but I do know that the effect is one I don’t like one bit.
This week and next, the Joint House/Senate Appropriations Committee will be finalizing the 2007 Agriculture Spending Bill. Using the thinly veiled excuse of meeting the requirements of a Federal Judge who ruled in favor of an Organic Blueberry farmer in Maine in Harvey v. Veneman that the USDA organic standards violated the 1990 Organic Foods Production Act and that synthetic materials could not be added to food, the USDA is once again trying to destroy organic food purity by submitting a Draft Amendment to the Joint Committee which would BRING US ORGANIC FARMING STANDARDS INTO COMPLIANCE WITH CODEX ONES despite the fact that these standards are highly damaging to the American Organic standards. They will allow the following without labeling or identification:
– Pesticides to be used in the growing of organic food
– Synthetic materials to be included in organic foods
– Cattle can be treated with antibiotics and then administratively converted back to “organic
– Large percentage of non-organic feed for supposedly organic animals
This is the same imitative that the same USDA and the same industries attempted to bring us in 1997-78 when they wanted to use toxic sludge containing cadmium and other heavy metals as “fertilizer” for organics along with the ever-popular pesticides, herbicides (many of which contain mercury, by the way) and veterinary drugs for animals.
This is the same initiative that is leading to the attempt to undermine, gut or overturn DSHEA (by the way, if you haven’t sent your letters to Congress to protect DSHEA, please do so now). The target here, however, is yet another set of protective regulations embodied in the Organic Foods Production Act which give us the option of purchasing a reliably healthy, non-polluted, non-GMO, non-toxic food supply.
If you value your right to make meaningful choices about your health AND if you value your health AND if you see the relationship between your food and your health, NOW IS THE HOUR! Write to Congress now to impress upon them how important retaining meaningful organic food standards are to you!
You know, if I were reading this and other blogs and emails the Natural Solutions Foundation sends out I might get weary: there are so many issues, so many times I get asked to write to Congress, so many different problems. And that is exactly the point. If the issues can be fragmented and we can be driven into apathy, Codex and its organizational brethren, global control and loss of personal freedoms, win. The Bigs, who have enough lawyers and publicists and campaign managers, win. Big Pharma, Big Agribiz, Big Biotechna, Big Chema and Big Medica get to set the rules, set the standards and reap the benefits. Your illness and needless suffering and mine are not even collateral damage because they profit two Bigs on that list: Big Pharma and Big Medica.
So yes, there are a lot of letters to write and there will be more. And yes, there will be a lot of issues coming at you. And yes, this war is being fought on many fronts. Remember Jefferson, “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty”. Which side would each and every one of the Founding Fathers and Mothers (yes, there were women partitions, too) have been on? Corporate greed and the apathy that allows it to flourish or the battle for our bodies and our rights under our own control?
So please contact Congress NOW! We have about 1 week on this one, perhaps less. “Urgent” does not even begin to describe this one!
Oh, two more things: don’t forget about starting a Health Freedom Meetup (go to http:.//healthfreedom.meetup.com to get started). You pick the time, date and location. Let people in your area know about it by email, word of mouth and some posters in health food stores, etc. Schedule it with me and I will do a phone visit via speaker phone and provide materials to make organizing easier. Grass roots give us the strength we need. Spreading the word is absolutely crucial. It’s a numbers game: the number of their dollars versus the numbers of our voices! If we have enough numbers, we win. If not, we loose. It’s that simple.
The other item is donation to our $10,000 fund. We are less than $800 away from our fund raising goal. If you have not yet done so, please donate generously. Think about what having dedicated health freedom warriors on your side is worth to you and share that amount with us. Consider making a monthly pledge so that we can spend our time on the battle, not on finding the resources to stay in the battle.
Thanks for you continuing active involvement. Your emails and calls are inspiring and heart warming. I learn from them every day and I appreciate the new ways of fighting this war coming from you.
Yours in health and organic freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director