|
|
|
|
A PHARMACEUTICAL LOOK at VITAMIN THERAPY |
|
Vitamin Satire |
|
HOW TO
DESTROY CONFIDENCE IN VITAMINS WHEN YOU DO NOT HAVE THE FACTS Satire by Andrew W. Saul,
Assistant Editor, Journal of Orthomolecular
Medicine. “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to this year's annual meeting of the
World Headquarters Of Pharmaceutical Politicians, Educators, and Reporters
(WHOPPER). “Let us get right to the point.
Many of our members and affiliates have complained about what is, for us, an
alarming and dangerous segment of health care: so-called orthomolecular medicine. We wish to assure you, although this
therapeutic approach is, unfortunately, very effective in preventing and
treating disease, that we will make sure the public will never learn of it.
We can say this with considerable confidence, since for over 50 years we have
managed to keep virtually all psychiatrists from using niacin to treat
schizophrenia; we have kept cardiologists from prescribing vitamin E for
heart disease; and we have kept general practitioners from prescribing
vitamin C for viral illnesses. “Yes, it has really been a
triumphant half-century. How did we do it? It is really quite easy. Here is a
summary for those of you that may have missed the last WHOPPER meeting. “Our guiding principle is, keep
the public afraid. Any fear will do, but we have been especially pleased
with, and therefore recommend instilling, the fear of new strains of flu
viruses, fear of vaccine shortages, and most especially, the fear of vitamin
toxicity. Our success with this last one has been nothing short of
spectacular. “Of course, you know that decades
of poison control center statistics show that there have been virtually no
deaths from vitamins. You also know that properly prescribed drugs, taken as
directed, kill at least 100,000 Americans annually. Clearly, the last thing
we want is for the public to actually figure out that vitamin therapy is tens
of thousands of times safer than drug therapy. “Therefore, we endorse the
following tactics: “1) Always demand 100% safety and 100% efficacy from nutritional therapy.
This is particularly effective when you, at the very same time, continually
remind the public that they have to expect and accept a reasonable amount of
dangerous, even fatal, side effects with drug therapy. And, if one drug does
not work, there is always another, still more expensive drug that might. “2) Always give priority to publishing research that portrays vitamins as
ineffective, or as outright harmful. Select the low-dose vitamin study;
ignore the high-dose study. Our master stroke is when we criticize low-dose nutrient
studies for ineffectiveness, while discrediting effective high-dose studies because
they might be dangerous. Remember: pick the one negative vitamin study;
ignore the hundreds of positive vitamin studies. “3) If a positive megavitamin study is actually submitted to your
department, medical society or journal, reject it on a technicality, and
take a year or two to do so. Better still, make the authors publish in the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine.
After all, whatever is published there will not be indexed by the U.S. National
Library of Medicine. Therefore, the public's annual 700 million MEDLINE
searches will utterly fail to find it. People cannot read what cannot be
located. “4) Obfuscation works. Cloud and confuse the issue. Never let the
truth stand in the way of a good press release. This we learned from the
tobacco industry: If you cannot wow 'em with
wisdom, baffle them with baloney. Remember, with vitamins, always
highlight the negative; ignore the positive. Never let the facts get in the
way of as good argument. A good argument is one that you win. It's about
politics, not health. “5) While half the population takes
vitamins, fewer than 1% of physicians practice
orthomolecular medicine. That is a very small minority. How hard can it
be to shut them up? After all, look
what we did to Linus Pauling. When he spoke out for vitamin C, we got the
entire medical world to openly snicker at the only person in history to win
two unshared Nobel prizes. Talk about a WHOPPER! “6) Take heed of what behaviorist
B.F. Skinner said: Education is a very large number of very small
steps. The secret is to keep plugging away, every chance we get. Every time we tell a WHOPPER in the news
media or in the medical press, it is one additional, cumulative step towards
washing the public's mind clean as a whistle, and stamping out
nutritional medicine for good. “Now go back to your
word-processors and get to work. Wade through those nutrition studies and
latch onto the negative ones. The news media are waiting to hear from you.” OK: a “World Headquarters Of Pharmaceutical Politicians, Educators, and
Reporters” may be (slightly)
fictitious, but the problem is real enough: Negative stories about vitamins
indeed have been front-page leads, yet vitamin cures rarely make the evening
news. This is changing rapidly. The
media are now regularly hearing from orthomolecular medicine. One way is
through the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service (OMNS), a project of
particular interest to the late Dr. High Riordan, who wanted to promote “an
awareness of orthomolecular.” Hugh often said that he wanted orthomolecular
medicine to be a household word. OMNS seeks to accomplish precisely that.
OMNS began full operation on March
23, 2005. Today, OMNS press releases go out to over 3,000 media outlets,
including newspapers, radio and TV stations worldwide. OMNS asserts and reasserts the
positive messages: 1) Orthomolecular medicine saves
lives. 2) The number one side effect of
vitamins is failure to take enough of them. 3) Vitamins are not the problem;
they are the solution. OMNS press releases are reviewed
by members of an editorial board consisting of Abram Hoffer, M.D., Harold
Foster, Ph.D., Bradford Weeks, M.D., Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D., Erik Paterson,
M.B., Thomas Levy M.D,. J.D., Steve Hickey, Ph.D., and Andrew Saul. TO SUBSCRIBE to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service: If you would like to receive this
wire-service style email newsfeed without charge,
please go to http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html . All previous OMNS releases are archived at http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml
and may be freely reprinted with attribution. (This editorial is reprinted with permission
from Saul AW. [Editorial] How to destroy confidence in vitamins when you do
not have the facts. J Orthomolecular Med, 2007. Vol 22, No 1, p 3-4.) For more nutritional
therapy information, you might want to read DOCTOR YOURSELF (http://www.doctoryourself.com/saulbooks.html)
and FIRE YOUR DOCTOR! (http://www.doctoryourself.com/review.html)
|
|
|
|
AN IMPORTANT NOTE: This page is not in any way offered as prescription, diagnosis nor treatment for any disease, illness, infirmity or physical condition. Any form of self-treatment or alternative health program necessarily must involve an individual's acceptance of some risk, and no one should assume otherwise. Persons needing medical care should obtain it from a physician. Consult your doctor before making any health decision. Neither the author nor the webmaster has authorized the use of their names or the use of any material contained within in connection with the sale, promotion or advertising of any product or apparatus. Single-copy reproduction for individual, non-commercial use is permitted providing no alterations of content are made, and credit is given. |
||
|
|
|
| Home | Order my Books | About the Author | Contact Us | Webmaster | |
|
