Killing Us Softly

Afhound99 you could be right on to something, im reading a book called Killing Us Softly by Paul Ofitt he exposes an unregulated industry under no obligation to prove its claims or admit its risks –that can actually be very harmful. In ‘Killing Us Softly’ he exposes how:
As someone who has tried and does take all manner of supplements this is a fascinating read.


Janet

Hello Janet,

You might be interested in reading this discussion we had about 4 months ago on this topic and Dr. Offit.

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Hans

Hans the FDA did not approve Thalidomine until 1998, it was approved in the fifties in Europe, withdrawn because of causing birth defects, you lumped this drug with others in the discussion in which you posted the URL. I agree that drugs do cause a lot of bad side effects and are prescribed way too much. However this is a post on the vitamin industry that should police themselves better, there are a lot of supplements and herbs that are coming from China that are suspect, this does concern me. There are vitamin industries in the U.S. that are producing supplements, my Holistic doctor is on a Medical Advisory Board, along with Dr. Blaylock and Dr. Chauncey Crandall of Medix select, their vitamins are pure/safe, they are however more expensive but you are getting what the label says, which is very important.

Liz

Hi Liz,

I avoid all supplements sourced from China, unless they have full cGMP certification and are backed by US companies the use pharmacuetical quality control methods in their production process.

The one small cost in the form of requiring the buyer to educate themselves a bit and learn which of the many supplement companies are consistently reliable and trustworthy from the much smaller percentage that have repeated problems and questions quality control track record, is the very worthwhile price paid to insure we have a large range of important nutritional supplements available in the dosage forms needed for therapeutic efficacy.

Its is simply not that hard to do one's homework and find out how many very reputable and trustworthy firms there are in this field. Those in the press and influenced strongly by Big Pharma lobbyist, whose mission of total regulatory control over the supplement industry, and who overly- emphasize and overly-dramatize the very real but relatively few outright fraud or misleading practices that are revealed from time to time, mostly from fly by night kind of outfits, never discuss the detailed and very costly steps the many top flight supplement companies go through to insure consistently reliable potencies and purities from their products.

You never hear one story about any of these companies or products that make p the vast majority of the supplement industry and mostly hear the bad news accounts of people cooking up Body Builder or Stimulant enhancing supplements in their basement and selling them over the internet and in some health food stores that cut corners or are outright cheating. But these stories do not reflect the quality of the industry, unlike what the sensational news reports would have us believe from their breathless reports.

The bottom line still remains that of all ER and hospital reports of adverse events over the last 10 years up through the last accounting I saw in late 2011, there had been ZERO deaths and very few serious health events reported in the US from commercially available nutritional supplements taken as directed.

Compare that to the track record of pharmaceutical drugs and the many 100,000s of deaths over the last ten years is so far off the charts compared to the issues that still need to be cleaned up in the supplement industry, that there isn't even a debate on the relative risks between the two industries.

Im all for improved self policing of the supplement industry and there have been big strides taken in that effort in recent years, but there will always be at least a relatively few people/companies who will try to take advantage of the lack of draconian regulations to make a fast buck at the buyers expense, but with a little bit of due diligence you can easy and safely protect yourself from such relatively limited shenanigans without risking losing our access to the many wonderful supplements through FDA regulations when they cant even properly regulate and test the drugs they let through the pipe stream every year! And we could lose access to many if not most of those really great products that can potentially be so helpful to so many of us who take the time to learn how they work and how they should be used.

Shannon

Shannon:

I am not for government policing the supplement industry, our government has put their noses into our lives and I am sick of it. I said the vitamin industry should do a better job of policing. You said the buyer should educate themselves, I don't think it is as easy as you say, we still have to rely on what they put on the label, who knows if that information is correct, tell me, how do I go about getting the correct scoop. Usually the vitamins that a Holistic doctor sells in his office should be ok, right? Also, it appears that a lot of people take supplements based upon what they have read or believe they need, which they may or may not need. Taking too much of a certain vitamin may not kill you, except for potassium supplements, but it can make you sick.

L

Shannon - good points. As you mention, those supplement companies who have high standards for quality control and assay all incoming raw materials and outgoing finished product are the ones to buy... or those who produce professional grade products. The one thing everyone should remember about supplements is buy a reputable brand and that big box store vitamins while very inexpensive, may be useless for nutrient content and quality.

Recent unsettling news ... even with FDA overseeing imported drugs... look at the recent Ranbaxy story ...drugs from India approved by FDA but failing to meet basic standards. The government needs to clean up its act on pharmaceutical drugs and leave supplements alone.
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Jackie