Book has me rethinking products that I thought were "safe"

I've taken many supplements over the years, as well as
vitamins often because . . . well, I'm not really sure
as the reason why . . . however, after reading Dan
Hurley's informative NATURAL CAUSES: DEATH, LIES
AND POLITICS IN AMERICAN'S VITMAIN AND HERBAL
SUPPLEMENT INDUSTRY, I've stated to revisit
my use of such products that I had previously thought were
"safe and natural."

It turns out that many--if not most--of them are often
untested and unproven . . . what's worse, they are often
tragically unsafe.

Hurley backs up with his claims with a meticulous
job of research . . . in addition, his use of real-life stories
of what has happened to people who used supplements (one
woman burned, another became incapacitated
by nerve damage, etc.) really startled me.

He also is not afraid to mention the names of politicians
who helped push through the 1994 Dietary Supplement Health
and Education Act, a law that he maintains is one of the worst
on he books . . .furthermore, he has this to say about
best-selling author Kevin Trudeau:

Before getting into the supplement business, Trudeau was
indicated in 1988 on seven counts of larceny. . . . In 1990,
he was indicated again, this time for charging $122,000
on credit cards that weren't his own . . . he settled [a 1996 case]
by paying a fine of $10,000 . . . and the next year [2004] he
agreed--in the harshest penalty every extracted by the FTC
against any health product in any setting--not to make any
informationals to sell anything, with one exception: his own
book . . . so Trudeau wrote a book, and by early 2006, it had
sold five million copies.

He also opened my eyes about Dr. Andrew Weil, who has been
featured on a TIME cover magazine story, as well as on
countless TV shows . . . according to Hurley:

Behind his carefully cultivated appearance of impartiality and despite
his 1998 profession that he is not in the business of "selling things,"
Dr. Weil has made a major business of offering his own brand of
premium-priced supplements to consumers, which he only
hinted at in a 2005 Time magazine cover story when he stated, "I take
a good daily multivitamin-multimineral supplement, one that I formulated
myself." In fact, he sells an entire line of supplements under the brand
name "Dr. Weil Select." Shoppers can buy a sixty-day supply of his
"Daily Antioxidant for Optimum Health," containing the high doses
of beta carotene and vitamin C shown in studies to increase the risk of
premature death, for $43.99. Or one can buy thirty days' worth of his
"Memory Support," including the gingko biloba that has been shown
not to improve memory, for $56.10. In fact, none of the dozens of products
he sells has been conclusively proven to do anything more than to enrich
Dr. Weil, or at least his Weil Foundation.

In case you think that there's no good that can come from taking
a vitamin or supplement, Hurley is being objective when he concludes:

Still, for now anyway, fish oil and vitamin D appear to be a decent bet
for the average adult. Let it be recorded, then, lest anyone suggest that
not a single dietary supplement has been found to be both safe and
effective for the masses despite Mr. Harkin's billion-dollar search for
proof: of the 29,000 products now on the market, two look pretty
darn good.



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Thank you Dan on behalf of all the supplement victims too embarrassed to speak out.

Back in the 1950s I was discolored by a drug that contained silver. The condition is called argyria. In 1995 when I learned that silver was being sold as a "dietary supplement", I asked salesmen for the evidence that led them to believe that it offered benefits and that it was safe and wouldn't discolor people. They didn't have any. One threatened me and admitted that there is no such evidence. I tried desperately to warn the public of the danger of ingesting silver and posted a web page for that purpose. Salesmen laughed and said I was comparing apples to oranges. Unfortunately, as I and all the scientists who were familiar with silver and argyria predicted, there are now many cases of argyria caused by silver supplements, one of which Dan mentions in his book. Many of the argyric people who speak to me tell me that they feel so stupid because they believed the salesmen who told them that their supplements were non-toxic. They believed them till they turned gray. If anything, Dan's book is much too easy on the supplement industry. I just hope lots of people read it. If so, it may save many lives. My greatest fear is that there is something like cigarettes out there and that by the time we find out it will be too late for a lot of human beings.

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Informative and Alarming

Having worked in medical research for many years, and having earlier worked in pharmaceutical supply and healthcare, I found this book, Natural Causes, informative and alarming. That so many people eschew established medicine to follow natural remedies that are unproven is astounding. Further problems result from their frequent self-prescribed overdoses and interactions from unrestrained consumption of multiple of supplements. But, the real problem this book heralds is the lack of control over the products sold to the American Public. If a person decides to take a certain supplement, the product obtainable by commercial enterprise should be tested for quality and purity. In the absence of testing for efficacy, which incidentally should be undertaken gladly by manufacturers who believe their products are legitimately useful, the minimal acceptable test, should be purity. After all, supplements are regulated as foods and even foods have labeling requirements. Why do people accept capsules full of fillers and worse, miscellaneous unnamed active substances in unspecified amounts?

This book, Natural Causes, is well-researched, well-organized and clearly annotated. It looks in depth at the resistance to regulation of the supplement industry, the absence of scientific studies supporting the use of dietary supplements, and at the ever-growing popularity of such substances. The personal interest stories contribute anecdotal evidence to this journalistic effort and serve their purpose of drawing attention to the potential for harm from widescale use of untested products being sold to the public. It is amazing that the US government has funded the NCCAM and its predecessors for years and found barely a crumb of support for any of the tested products. And even beyond that, as is noted in the case of ephedra, people will buy "copycat" products of unproven substances when the original product is no longer available.

Where is the point where someone's allegiance to a supplement manufacturer, or the myth of efficacy, is greater than personal responsibility to maintain an open mind and healthy body? This book cannot answer that but the author does suggest some actions which can be taken to increase safety for the consumer who does wish to take dietary supplements.



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