A real David vs Goliath story

As many of you know, I come down on the pharmaceutical industry quite regularly. Some might even think that I do it too much. Maybe so, but perhaps this blog will open your eyes to the huge bias against the nutritional supplement industry and the double standard that exist for reporting information to the public about the two entities. Daily, I’m bombarded with people asking me about supplements that have either been banned or critically scrutinized by some federal agency. I’m sure there is a couple things you’ve heard before that would cause you to be concerned about using supplements. While there is a tremendous amount of information out there to dispute the mis-information regarding supplements, I’m not blogging to prove merit or validity, but rather to show the bias and double standards when comparing the nutritional industry to the pharmaceutical industry. I hope this blog gets people to understand that there truly is a bias against supplement industry, by the federal government and their partners in crime (literally) “Big Pharma”. I don’t have the resources available to me to do this as thoroughly as I’d like, but I’m pretty sure you’ll get the point. I am going to focus on the lack of media attention to the major stories regarding the pharmaceutical industry, because I feel that the negative stories regarding the supplement industry are already being exposed by the media on a regular basis. Sadly, but truthfully, most of the stories regarding the nutritional supplement industry, are actually being done in a way to try and discredit the industry. Here is one example: Several years ago, this headline was being dispersed world wide “Too much Vitamin C can be dangerous, study finds. This article had so many people running to their local stores (including ours) to get their refunds. We practically had to hire a new employee, just to handle the returns. So many people were scared and unsure, that they decided to stay away from ALL supplements. Now before I get into facts, let me first start off by asking a simple question. What in the world would not be dangerous, if you took “TOO MUCH”? How subjective is this? Linus C. Pauling, the Nobel laureate chemist took 12,000 milligrams of vitamin C daily. He suggested that people, depending on their body size and activity levels, could take as much as 7-12 grams per day. Also, there is a difference between synthetic vitamin C and natural vitamin C, which the article did not bother to mention. Like I said in the beginning of this blog, my purpose is not to substantiate the use of vitamin C or any other supplement, just to point out the double standards. Recently, a study on vitamin E came out saying that the vitamin did nothing for the prostate and is likely to cause prostate cancer. This study is so severely flawed, (purposely) because the compound that was used, ( DL-alpha tocopherol ) is a synthetic, not natural version of the compound. Also, in regards to vitamin E, there are 8 compounds. To get full efficacy, a product that incorporates all of these compounds should be used. At the very least, the study should’ve used the specific compound that has been shown to kill prostate cancer cells. See the following link from Pub Med (Gamma-Tocotrienol) http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20617516 These are just two examples of information being released that clearly show bias against supplements. There are many, many others, including ephedra, tryptophan, and beta carotene, but I will move on. Every day people are dying from complications due to drug interactions, side effects, etc. People are abusing and becoming addicted to pharmaceutical drugs every day. Doctors aren’t experts on drugs, that’s why they send you to a pharmacist. However, a doctor will try to pass him or herself off as a supplement specialist, by telling you to stay away from nutritional supplements. What makes this person qualified to give you advice about supplements? The fact is, they know very little about supplements, and the little they do know is often dangerous. From January 1, until February 24th of this year (2012) there have already been eleven drug recalls. Did you see that on the nightly news? One of those recalls was baby Tylenol. The entire U.S supply has been pulled from the market. Did you happen to hear about that? Probably not, but if you did, then you’re more informed than the average bear. Doctors and the pimps (the drug companies) are far from ethical. Below is a link to a watchdog web site, that follows the tax payer money and where we’re being frauded. Take a look at the biggest offenders. http://www.taf.org/top20.htm Okay, no its your turn. Feel free to pile on, or defend, whatever suits your fancy. By the way, if you’re interested in staying up to speed on the recalls, here is a link http://www.drugrecalls.com/index.html There are many, but this is a start.