|
Point of View with Barb
Sumner Burstyn - June 16 2003
Conventional medicine far riskier than
supplements
Hands up if you threw out all your vitamins last month just to
be on the safe side, after it was discovered that Australian company
Pan Pharmaceuticals had serious deficiencies in manufacturing and
quality control.
When the dust settled, though, just one product from Pan, an over-the-counter
travel sickness tablet, had caused harm.
But the tarnish quickly spread to the supplement industry as a
whole, as a blanket recall caused people to doubt not only the effectiveness
of vitamins and supplements but their safety.
We may have been looking in the wrong direction. While the Pan
medication put 19 Australians in hospital, and others suffered unspecified
harmful reactions, there were no reports of such incidents here.
At least not relating to legally produced vitamins and supplements,
even though an estimated half of New Zealanders take them.
Rather, according to the Ministry of Health, more than 650 New
Zealanders die each year from highly preventable reactions to pharmaceutical
medicines (in the United States the number exceeds 106,000).
So, given that no one has died in New Zealand from taking legal
over-the-counter supplements and harmful reactions are rare, why
the disproportionate media fuss over Pan Pharmaceuticals?
And why the calls to increase regulation of an industry that already
has more than 20 acts, regulations and codes of practice in place?
And why the advisory from the ministry telling people to discard
their supplements if they were at all unsure?
If you ask alternative medicine proponents, they'll relate a saga
that sounds like a conspiracy theory gone wild: from manipulation
of the media by the pharmaceutical industry to overt and covert
efforts to outlaw, discredit and otherwise damage the reputation
of natural remedies.
They talk even of pharmaceutical companies taking over the nutritional
supplements market and working to reduce the legal potency of products
so as to make them ineffective.
After all, the alternative practitioners argue, the global pharmaceutical
industry is the most profitable on earth and depends on a steady
supply of sick people. It all sounds ridiculous, right?
Not according to the latest edition of the British Medical Journal.
It's entirely devoted to claims that patients and Governments are
being systematically misled by pharmaceutical companies. Its dissection
of the industry reveals how research is being compromised, and exposes
the tactics used to promote new drugs and the relationships between
the world's leading pharmaceutical companies and supposedly independent
medical journals and family doctors.
Then there's the Dietary Supplement Safety Bill being introduced
in the US. Backed by the pharmaceutical industry, the legislation,
if passed, will effectively medicalise the dietary supplement industry,
force most manufacturers out of business and allow a pharmaceutical
takeover of the industry.
Or the Codex Alimentarius Commission. Run by the United Nations,
Codex is empowered to set standards of operation for the health
industry. Strangely, 90 per cent of representation is from multinational
pharmaceutical corporations but the supplement industry and the
general public are barred from attending.
Codex is working to control such things as the sale of dietary
supplements for preventative or therapeutic reasons and the potency
of natural remedies. It also seeks to convert definitions of many
supplements to drugs and to make its rules binding on every UN member
nation.
In Germany and Norway, where the Codex proposals are already enshrined
in law, even Vitamin C (above 200mg) is illegal, except by prescription
and then only from the pharmaceutical company that supplies the
medical system. But first you have to convince your doctor you need
it.
All this is happening despite recent reports such as that from
Harvard University on the prevention of cancer of the colon. The
longitudinal study of nearly 100,000 nurses over 20 years shows
that folic acid supplements reduce cancer of the colon by a huge
75 to 80 per cent.
At the same time, the Johns Hopkins Medical Centre's nutrition
department has stated that, based on studies where people take a
supplement, Vitamin E seems to reduce risk of some cancers by 60
to 70 per cent and the risk of heart disease by 80 to 90 per cent.
But perhaps the pharmaceuticals industry, despite its power, is
just a little worried. Last week the New York Times reported that
the Pharmaceuticals Research and Manufacturers of America would
increase its lobbying budget by 23 per cent to US$150 million ($259
million) in the coming year. Its budget includes more than US$2.5
million for such things as an "intellectual echo chamber of economists
and thought leaders" (read journalists), and for the placement of
articles by third parties and media relations consultants.
The agency also set aside US$12.3 million to develop coalitions
and strategic alliances with doctors, patients, universities and
influential members of minority groups. Pinch me if I'm dreaming
but doesn't that sound evil to you?
The bottom line is that you're 26,000 times more likely to die
from properly researched, regulated, prescribed and used drugs than
dietary supplements. Whether those supplements are effective preventative
measures, you'll have to decide for yourself. But somehow the behaviour
of the pharmaceutical companies makes me suspicious that the researchers
at Harvard and Johns Hopkins and all those vitamin and mineral advocates
might be right after all.
Just to be on the safe side, I'm taking my vitamins - while I can
still get them.
ENDS
© Barbara Sumner Burstyn, 2003
Send your comments to:
Barbara Sumner
Burstyn.
|
