This week the British Medical Journal published a study which reported that older people don’t benefit from taking a nutritional supplement. A few months ago, the same journal published another study that reported Multivitamins Won’t Ward Off Infection in Elderly – Senior Health, Aging and Elder Care Health Conditions Show No Decrease in Infection among the elderly who took supplements. Another articles in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal trumpets supplements don’t reduce the risk of fracture in the elderly. And David Bender graced the pages of the British Medical Journal with an editorial incorrectly asserting that we have no biomarkers for optimal health and that there is no point to a daily multivitamin for the elderly.
Years ago someone who knew a lot about a lot said, “The answer has to make sense”. So does this make sense? Nope! No sense at all. Well, then, what’s wrong with this picture? These are reputable journals, right? Peer reviewed, right? So the articles must be real science, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Here’s what’s wrong. The study on infection used a vitamin pill with values so low that they match what we can expect in Codex’s standards. And they had, as they are designed to have, no effect on keeping people healthy as they were intended not to have. Here are the nutrient contents of the supplement in the infection study with the amount that I take of each substance on a health-promotion basis in bold for comparison:
800 µg vitamin A (acetate) REL: 50,000 µg , 60 mg vitamin C REL:6,000 mg, 5 µg vitamin D3 REL:6,000 µg, 10 mg vitamin E (D, L-{alpha} tocopheryl acetate) REL:1,200 IU mixed tocopherols, 1.4 mg thiamin (mononitrate)REL:100 mg, 1.6 mg riboflavinREL:100 mg, 18 mg niacin (nicotinamide)REL:1000 mg, 6 mg pantothenic acid (calcium D-pantothenate)REL:400 mg, 2 mg pyridoxine (hydrochloride)REL:50 mg, 1 µg vitamin B12, REL:1000 µg , 200 µg folic acidREL:25,000 µg, 14 mg iron (fumurate) REL:0 mg, 150 µg iodine (potassium iodide)REL:150 µg, 0.75 mg copper (gluconate)REL:1 mg, 15 mg zinc (oxide)REL:25 mg, and 1 mg manganese (sulphate)REL:10 mg. The doses I take are those that I typically recommend for a health adult who wants to stay that way. I take 100 times as much Vitamin C, 1200 times the Vitamin D, 55.5 times as much niacin, and 25,000 times as much folic acid as test subjects recieved. So what the authors are actually testing is pretty close to the the Risk Assessment values which Coydex wants make the universal standard. Risk Assessment, you will remember, is a branch of toxicology and the Risk Assessment values of Vitamins and Minerals are those which are chosen because they have no effect on any human being! So of course they did not show an impact. DUH!
So guess what, here it is, hot off the press: Ultra low dose nutrients actually don’t work! But wait: what’s this? Buried deep in the study is the following fascinating set of statements: “Our participants were similar in age and place of residence to those studied in a previous, disputed trial that reported beneficial effects from supplementation…. Unlike our trial, the supplement used in the previous trial had four times the levels of vitamin E and vitamin B12 and also contained selenium, magnesium, calcium, and {beta} carotene. (emphasis added) ….Supplementation, especially of trace elements, has been shown to reduce infections in older people in nursing care with higher levels of nutritional deficiency….We cannot exclude the possibility that the intakes provided in the supplement were inadequate to affect the immune system.
These nutrient levels were either carefully chosen to show no impact (which is highly unethical considering the impact on human health and well-being if therapeutic dosages of these nutrients had been given) or the authors are astonishingly incompetence scientists who committed a large number of subjects, scientist hours, journal pages, etc., to experiments designed by nincompoops. If the latter is the case, then the peer reviewers and all the department chairmen involved were nincompoops, too. And while I have seen my share of academic nincompoops, I don’t think that is the explanation here. Remember, the answer has to make sense.
No, I believe these articles are part of the poison press against safe, simple, effective and non toxic health choices.
So I have a couple of questions about these studies (which are questions I always ask): Who funded these studies? Who wrote the articles? The principle author or a ghost writer? What are the financial interests of the authors in the outcomes of the studies? Who chose the level of nutrients to be tested and upon what basis?
And, most important, why did these well educated people want to perform studies that “show” nutrients have no value so badly that they shamed themselves in front of anyone who understands biochemistry, scientific methodology or medical ethics?
I guess I would feel better if they were nincompoops.
Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
We all know that the FDA is not a level playing field since everything tips toward pharma medicine and away from Natural Nutritional Medicine (NNM). No news there, unfortunately. However, NewsTarget.com sent this out and asked people to share it. Please read and enjoy! (And then consider what we need to do so that it no longer would be true!) It’s a bit long but worth the effort.
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Need a job? NewsTarget.com has just received word on several openings for cushy jobs with the FDA. Why keep working in powerless civilian positions when you can get paid by the government and wield power over others! Here’s what the agency is looking for:
PROPAGANDA OFFICER
No scientific background necessary. As a Propaganda Officer, you will help the FDA invent and dispense information that discredits products, companies and ideas that threaten FDA control over the monopolistic drug industry. Previous experience in a pharmaceutical company preferred. A background in public relations, communications or used car sales is a plus.
Career opportunities abound at the FDA, and it’s easy to succeed with this job since the mainstream press will print practically anything you say, regardless of whether it makes any scientific sense, as long as it’s on official FDA letterhead. Starting salary: $75,000 plus a license to kill any idea (or health business) you don’t like.
SCIENCE CENSOR
Have a scientific background? Put it to good use at the FDA as a respected Science Censor. Your job will be to bury all the scientific findings that harm the prestige and credibility of the FDA. Your main job is making sure all the drugs we’ve approved continue to be seen as safe, even when clinical studies reveal otherwise.
A variety of high-tech tools will be at your disposal. You’ll have direct phone lines to all the medical journals, a team of paralegals to generate legal threats, and you’ll even have your own personal shredder right beside the incoming fax machines where doctors fax voluntary drug side effects reports. Help us keep dangerous drugs on the market for as long as possible, and you’ll earn big performance bonuses!
Starting salary is $35,000 from the FDA, plus a $250,000 annual bonus paid by various drug companies, based on merit.
CHIEF OPPRESSION OFFICER
Ever wanted to carry a gun? Now you can wield power as an FDA employee, conducting armed raids on clinics where dangerous criminals are conducting illicit operations like healing people with prayer or teaching patients about nutrition. You can even raid buses full of senior citizens returning from medication-buying trips in Canada or Mexico! Previous military experience is a plus, ex-Gitmo interrogators preferred. (Duct tape and broomsticks provided upon request.)
No scientific or medical knowledge required, since you don’t really need to understand the reasons why you’re conducting armed raids. Just follow management’s orders, and we’ll hand you a gun and a badge, all in the name of protecting the public from the criminals of alternative medicine.
Starting salary is $65,000 plus all the free Prozac you can swallow.
(Antidepressant side effects are a plus in your line of work.)
KICKBACK COORDINATOR
As the Kickback Coordinator, your job is to keep tabs on FDA managers’ investments in pharmaceutical companies. You will maximize investment portfolios, produce reports that identify which drugs the FDA should approve next in order to boost shareholder profits, and serve as a courier for illicit cash exchanges.
There is no starting salary, but you do get a percentage of the kickbacks you manage. Criminal background preferred, mob ties are a plus.
MORALE OFFICER
The FDA’s morale has been harmed lately by utterly false accusations from certain FDA whistleblowers. As a Morale Officer, your job will be to keep all FDA employees in line as a way of boosting overall morale and work efficiency. It’s good for the economy!
To enforce proper morale among FDA employees, especially those involved in drug safety operations, you will be granted insider access to top-secret FDA technologies currently under development, including our “Graham buster” verbal silencer (patents pending) and a building-wide subliminal program broadcast system. “All profitable drugs are safe… All profitable drugs are safe…”
Salary: $85,000 plus free unlimited cable television.
CANADA BASHER
Do you share our hatred for those snooty Socialist Canadians? Join the FDA as a full-time Canada basher, and get paid to do what you love
best: insult Canada!
As you may know, the free market sales of prescription drugs from Canada threatens the FDA-controlled monopoly market for drugs in the U.
S. We need help to discredit Canada so that gullible U.S. consumers will distrust Canadian pharmacies and keeping shelling out their hard-earned cash at overpriced U.S. pharmacies (which we regulate and control, of course).
We already have a few old tricks to assist you in this job, like claiming that terrorists will poison all the drugs in Canada. You will have to come up with other strategies like claiming that Canadian pharmacies have no quality control, unlike U.S. pharmacies where pharmacists never, ever make mistakes.
Salary: $45,000 plus unlimited free drugs from Canada.
PUBLIC SAFETY PROGRAM DIRECTOR
In this role, you will actually work to protect the public from unsafe ingredients in foods, drugs and cosmetics. This is not really a full-time job. In fact, you do not even need to show up.
No experience necessary, in anything. No education required. Starting salary is minimum wage. You must bring your own desk to work, if you want one. That is, if you actually want to work at all.
HOW TO APPLY
Are you qualified for one or more of these prestigious positions at the FDA? Apply online at the FDA website, and if hired, you could soon wield government-sanctioned power over your fellow citizens. It’s a dream job, with outstanding job security. As long as you can help us make sure people never have access to genuine healing therapies, you’ll always have a job with us!
Susan Davis, a Congresswoman from California, has a very bad idea. Her idea is called HR 3156, a health freedom-destroying bill up for review by Congress. It is very important that HR 3156 is not passed by Congress.
If it is passed, it could throw a serious monkey wrench into our work of protecting health freedom. That’s because if HR 3156 is passed, it would destroy the protection offered by DHSEA.
We must make a din that Congress cannot pretend it isn’t hearing! And I believe we can do it. Currently, HealthFreedomUSA.org receives around 2000 unique visitors per day. That’s quite good. The numbers are increasing every week (thank you to all those who are telling family, friends and colleagues).
Since Thursday, July 14, when HealthFreedomUSA.org first began the campaign to stop HR 3156, over a thousand letters have been sent to Congress about Susan Davis’ health freedom-destroying bill. It’s clear that HealthFreedomUSA.org is a powerful tool for serious grass-roots action in the cause of health freedom. Because of HealthFreedomUSA.org and the traffic it gets, we now have the ability to mobilize thousands of people per week.
Let us use this ability, and let us use it right now. What I would like to ask you to do is phone your Congressional delegate, and tell them about Susan Davis’ health freedom-destroying HR3156 and why it must be stopped. Ask your Congressional delegate to visit www.healthfreedomusa.org/new-letter to learn about HR3156 and then vote against it if put up for review in Congress. Yes, I am asking you to use the phone, because it will add an additional volley of pressure on Congress after all the email letters sent since last Wednesday. Emails can be deleted, but phone calls cannot (your Congressional delegate would not hang up on you).
Click here to find the phone number for your local Congressman or Congresswoman.
Some would say most of our politicians are doing the best that they can. I agree. However, it is clear that some of them sometimes need to be reminded about the objective of their chosen profession (service). If we help them remember who they’re meant to be serving (the people), and that HR3156 is based on risk assessment (the completely wrong science for assessing nutrients) rather than biochemistry (the right science for assessing nutrients), then we have done a good job as informed citizenry of our fascinating nation (that is in serious need of healing).
And please donate to support HealthFreedomUSA.org. Your donations are critical to keep us going strong.
Yours in Health and Freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
P.S. Feel free to leave comments to my blog entries.
P.P.S. Make sure to spread the word. I’ve heard about health food store workers posting the HR3156 letter on their bulletin boards. That’s a good idea. Do the same if you can, especially if you’re in California.
Susan Davis has introduced a bill into the US House of Representatives that can harm you and those you love. HR 3156 gives the FDA (not known as a pro-health organization in the best of times) astonishing power to take nutrients out of the market place if there is ANY risk associated with their use even if no harm has been caused by them and despite any benefit they may confer. It sets up a wildly non-level playing field by creating an Adverse Events reporting requirement for nutrients (which are known to be astonishingly safe and free of risk or complication) while there is no such reporting requirement or system for pharmaceuticals (which are the 3rd leading cause of death in the US when used according to instructions!
And the bill would cost $5M per year. You are supposed to pay for it not only with your tax dollars, but also by giving up your health rights conferred by the 1994 Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA) passed by unanimous consent by Congress!
HR 3156 also specifically excludes vitamins and minerals from the things it covers. Why? Because the CODEX Vitamin and Mineral Guideline was due to be passed in just a few days after Susan introduced it into the House so there was no need to fuss with them: it was already a done deal!
There is a vast body of biochemistry and nutritional literature which makes it clear what the consequences of passing HR 3156 are. If allowed to become law in the US, HR 3156 will
Obviously, the first order of legislative business for any health conscious person is to contact your Congressional Delegation and make sure that they understand that voting for this bill (or any of its twins that are sure to come down the pike) WILL be the end of their political career . And, oh by the way, this atrocity also needs to signal the end the careers of its co-sponsors, Waxman of California and Dingell of Michigan as well.
But stop for a minute to consider the following interesting question:
Whose store is the personable and warm-and-fuzzy Ms Davis minding? Whom is she serving at her table? Obviously not you and I!
Susan Davis was elected to the US House of Representatives from California’s 53rd District. She has been involved in public service for years, first in her lovely home town of San Diego and then as a member of the California State Assembly.
Here is what her official web site has to say about Susan:
Susan’s interest in public affairs grew out of her experiences as a social worker, parent, youth mentor, and military spouse. Growing up, Susan remembered her father, a pediatrician, sometimes leaving the house in the middle of the night to care for his young patients. Through these life experiences, Susan developed an understanding of and deep commitment to improving her community and country.
Dr. Laibow notes: the logic of that escapes me but, hey, who am I to question deep commitment to improving someone’s community and country?
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Susan grew up in Richmond, California. She graduated from the University of California at Berkeley with a degree in sociology. She then earned a master’s degree in social work from the University of North Carolina.
After graduation, Susan and her husband, Steve, lived in Japan with their two children, Jeffery and Benjamin, while Steve served as a doctor in the Air Force during the Vietnam War.
Residents of San Diego since 1972, Susan and Steve have been married for 38 years. They have two grandchildren, Henry and Jane.
So we have nice lady with a long marriage and a public spirit serving her district in the House.
Altogether, Susan Davis sounds like a nice lady with a public spirit and a devotion to doing the right thing, doesn’t she? And, for all I know, maybe she is. Maybe on the private levels she is a terrific mom and grandmother and, for all I know, grows beautiful roses and gives great dinner parties, too! So the issue is not whether Susan Davis is a nice person or not. The question that your health and that of your family hangs on is, whose work is Susan doing? Just whose health is Susan Davis protecting? I believe I have the answer for you.
So why would friendly, warm and ever-so-human Susan (who understands the high personal cost of illness from her physician father and husband’s professional lives) introduce a bill designed to gut DSHEA and guarantee increased human suffereing? After all, her bio says that she is interested in health. She probably is interested in the nutrition of her children and grand children, too.
But why would that bill get introduced into the House of Representatives on June 30, 2005, just days before the CODEX ALIMENTARIUS Commission was set to adopt the restrictive and pro-illness Vitamin and Mineral Guideline? And why would that bill specifically exclude vitamins and minerals since the FDA says that CODEX has no impact on domestic law?
Well, let’s see what sort of a district Susan represents. In addition to the lovely Torrey Pines State Reserve, Sea World and Balboa Park, here’s who lives in her neighborhood and who’s coming to dinner at Susan’s well laid table:
The San Diego metropolitan area is a leader in biomedical research and development, with a significant concentration of research institutions and biotechnology firms — such as Salk Institute, Scripps Research Institute, and the University of California San Diego.
There are more than 1,400 life scientists working in the region, three biological institutions granting life science PhDs. One of these institutions is ranked among the top 20 nationally in life sciences research.
The San Diego area has 33 publicly traded biotech companies and includes 31 firms with more than 100 employees. Sixty-one of these firms are members of the national Biotechnology Industry Association.
Visit often as the latest pharmaceutical jobs in San Diego can be found at sandiego.hirerx.com
But wait! There’s more! According to ColorBasePair, in lovely San Diego there are 72 pharmaceutical firms, 11 more in nearby La Jolla, and that’s just for starters! So Susan’s table is serving up a royal feast for Big Pharma. That’s whose health she’s taking care of!
Big Pharma is, of course, not in the business of keeping you or your loved ones healthy. Although much of the raw materials for your nutrients is produced by Big Pharma or its subsidiaries (and often distributed by them, too), all that nutrition stuff is bad for business because it can solve health problems at the root, making drugs to cover symptoms unnecessary. The scientific literature and clinical experience, as well as common sense, make the point clearly: when people have ample, or better yet, optimal levels of nutrients they simply do not develop the chronic, degenerative diseases which are the result of long-term toxicity (from our polluted air, water, and food) and under-nutrition. But these chronic degenerative diseases are where the money is for the pharmaceutical industry.
As is usually the case, follow the money.
Take macular degeneration (MD), for example. When I graduated from Medical School in 1970, by definition MD never afflicted anyone younger than 60 and was very rare in people under 65. Besides, MD was pretty uncommon. Today, we have an epidemic of MD (now the leading cause of blindness in the US). I have personally seen a family in which an 18 year old daughter and their 21 year old son had both lost their sight to MD! It has become commonplace in people in their 40’s and is often seen in 30 year olds. Why the change? Very simple:
chronic under-nutrition leading to changes which the body lacks the nutritional tools to correct. Damage accumulates and one more blind victim of nutritional scarcity struggles to get through life in the dark. Food in our society is plenty. However, because most of it is now processed, in terms of nutritional content, our food is literally starving our cells.
But, like all of the other diseases of chronic under-nutrition, there are drugs for MD. They don’t work particularly well and they are VERY expensive, but there they are and more are in the pipeline.
Now, if you are a drug company and you are going to spend the better part of a billion dollars developing a drug for something and getting it approved for market, don’t you want a lot of that something around so you can sell a lot of your drug? There you have the pharmaceutical reality, plain and simple:
Or, in practical terms: Let’s make sure that CODEX ALIMENTARIUS supports our business world wide and, here in the US at least, let’s go have dinner at Susan’s table!
What can you and I do?
Make sure HR 3156 (and the others like it that will be introduced) never gets passed. Protect DSHEA and tell Congress that you take this issue seriously enough to make sure that health defenders will go back to Congress and Big Pharma friends will not be re-elected.
Please send this letter to Congress about Susan’s HR 3156. Sending the letter is very easy and takes only a minute or two.
Do it now, if you care at all about health freedom.
Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Laibow
Medical Director
Natural Solutions Foundation
P.S. General Stubblebine and I will be heading home tomorrow so the likelihood of a Daily Update is low until Sunday, July 17.