FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, April 26, 2010

What's Going on at WIKIPEDIA?
Do You Detect Any Bias Against Nutritional Medicine?

(OMNS, Apr 26, 2010) Wikipedia is a popular internet site for those seeking information on a very wide variety of subjects. What is unique about it is that anyone, it is said, can contribute to or edit its content. The Orthomolecular Medicine News Service has received complaints from readers who have tried, and failed, to correct what they think are a number of strongly biased declarations at the Wikipedia page on Orthomolecular Medicine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthomolecular_medicine .

Here are some of those statements. (Emphasis added.) How many do you agree with?

"(T)he broad claims made by advocates of megavitamin therapy are considered unsubstantiated by available medical evidence. Critics have described some aspects of orthomolecular medicine as food faddism or quackery. Research suggests that some nutritional supplements might be harmful; several specific vitamin therapies are associated with an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, or death."

"In the early 20th century, some doctors hypothesized that vitamins could cure disease, and supplements were prescribed in megadoses by the 1930s. Their effects on health were disappointing, though, and in the 1950s and 60s, nutrition was de-emphasized in standard medical curricula."

"Amongst the individuals claimed posthumously as orthomolecularists are Max Gerson, who developed a diet that he claimed could treat diseases, but which is now thought to be ineffective and dangerous."

"Niacin has no known efficacy in psychiatric disease."

"(Dr. Abram) Hoffer believed that particular nutrients could cure mental illness. In the 1950s, he attempted to treat schizophrenia with niacin."

"Orthomolecular therapies have been criticized as lacking a sufficient evidence base for clinical use: their scientific foundations are too weak, the studies that have been performed are too few and too open to interpretation, and reported positive findings in observational studies are contradicted by the results of more rigorous clinical trials. Accordingly, 'there is no evidence that orthomolecular medicine is effective.'"

"The lack of scientifically rigorous testing of orthomolecular medicine has led to its practices being classed with other forms of alternative medicine and regarded as unscientific. It has been described as food faddism and quackery, with critics arguing that it is based upon an 'exaggerated belief in the effects of nutrition upon health and disease.'"

"The claims made by orthomolecular medicine proponents have been rejected by the medical community as unsubstantiated or false; as of 2009, current evidence does not support the efficacy of orthomolecular medicine in treating any disease."

"Barrie Cassileth, an adviser on alternative medicine to the National Institutes of Health, stated that "scientific research has found no benefit from orthomolecular therapy for any disease," and medical textbooks also report that there is "no evidence that megavitamin or orthomolecular therapy is effective in treating any disease."

"The American Academy of Pediatrics labeled orthomolecular medicine a "cult" in 1976, in response to claims that orthomolecular medicine could cure childhood psychoses and learning disorders."

"(O)rthomolecular medicine can cause harm and is often very expensive."

"Further clinical studies show no benefit of vitamin E supplements for cardiovascular disease."

"Several orthomolecular related AIDS approaches such as multivitamins, selenium and amino acids are used with reported improvements in patients, which are attributed to the placebo effect."

As you read the full article, you may find more statements that you think are biased, or that you may agree with. Either way, your input to Wikipedia is invited. And, perhaps, very much needed.

The problem, according to our sources, is that when interested people have tried to correct biased or even derogatory Wikipedia statements, their contributions and edits have been immediately eliminated and overwritten.

If you would like to verify whether this is true or not, please go directly to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orthomolecular_medicine and make whatever corrections you think are needed in order for the Orthomolecular Medicine page to be more accurate.

Then check Wikipedia again in a few days.

We would welcome your sharing your Wikipedia experiences with us: omns@orthomolecular.org A sampling of readers' comments will appear in a future OMNS release.

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:

Ralph K. Campbell, M.D. (USA)
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (Canada)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (United Kingdom)
James A. Jackson, PhD (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D (Sweden)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Canada)
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)

Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org

To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html

To Unsubscribe from this list: http://www.orthomolecular.org/unsubscribe.html