The Politics of Health.....Why Doctors & Big Pharma Plan to Stop you Buying Supplements
Why is it that half the doctors in the world say vitamins, herbs and minerals don’t work, except in very small doses to prevent deficiency diseases like beriberi, pellagra and scurvy? And why do many others say that supplements in larger therapeutic doses not only prevents disease but can actually cure it? How is it that the media is full of reports from doctors and research scientists all contradicting themselves on the subject?
Small wonder the public is confused. It is a longstanding controversy and one that has gone on for far too long - over a 100 years too long in fact. It is well over a century since the medical profession discovered that small amounts of vitamins and minerals actually prevented deficiency diseases and they worked out over the years the amounts needed to do this.
So today, on the one hand we have the traditionalists who believe supplements should only be consumed in small quantities as stated by bodies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They deny that supplements taken at higher than RDA doses can have any measurable impact upon human health. Unfortunately, despite the evidence to the contrary, this traditionalist group has been the predominant force directing national policies on the use of nutritional supplements in most countries. That is where the power and the money is.
A large minority of doctors however do believe that taking a variety of nutrients in doses substantially higher than the RDA, can both prevent disease and treat it. This latter group has had little or no influence on national policy or standards despite huge and increasing body of evidence to show that nutritional supplements can indeed be therapeutic (see endnote).
In the meantime, the public has been increasing its consumption of vitamins and other nutritional supplements at an extraordinary rate.Obviously they know something most of their doctors do not. They know supplements are good for them, even if they do not quite know which ones and why. And this increased consumption, approaching an estimated US$30 billion a year, has occurred despite strenuous efforts on the part of pharmaceutical companies and orthodox medicine to convince the public that increased doses of supplements above RDA levels has no effect on either preventing or treating disease.
Having it Both Ways
Curiously, many of these “traditionalists” want to have it both ways. Having said nutrients don’t work, they go on to say that vitamins, herbs and minerals have many of the same properties as drugs and could harm you. They then suggest that it is imperative that the public should be protected from itself and should not be allowed to buy nutritional supplements except at the lowest, non-therapeutic levels. Levels which according to them can’t do you any good but won’t harm you. Any nutritional supplements that could conceivably do you any good, they say you shouldn’t be able to buy and should be treated just like drugs, only prescribed by doctors.
Both views, that supplements don’t work and if they do they should be treated like drugs, are of course heavily endorsed by the pharmaceutical industry. Since nutritional supplements come from nature and can’t be patented, the pharmaceutical industry views them as a competitive to their patented drugs.
And they are right to think so. Motivated by huge financial incentives, the pharmaceutical industry has sought to suppress the use of supplements and limit their potencies. Much of their efforts have been focused on lobbying for legislation to limit the public’s right to take supplements at higher dosages, or in sponsoring studies to show that supplements are not effective for therapeutic purposes.
These efforts are coming to a head. There is now a concerted worldwide effort via the World Trade Organisation sitting in Europe under the guise of “harmonisation” to set “safe upper limits” (SUL’s) for all vitamins, minerals and herbs currently sold freely to the public in most countries. The problem is that the “safe upper levels” proposed seek to harmonise with those countries that already have the lowest and most restrictive regulations on the availability of supplements. There has been no serious attempt to independently research and assess the efficacy of nutritional supplements, nor their benefits versus risk. Worst of all, decisions that will become binding on us all setting unreasonably low limits are likely to be reached by committees packed withunelected regulatory bureaucrats, medical hegemonists and Big Pharma lobbyists.
Even the US Congress has been pressurized by lobbyists to schedule hearings to determine whether the availability of supplements in certain dosages should be further regulated in the United States, following the death of an athlete attributed to his misuse of the herb ephedra.
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Where’s Your Prescription....?”
These are interesting issues that whether we know it or not will greatly affect our health and wellbeing. There is every chance that in the near future you will not be able to buy any nutritional supplements, except at the lowest non-therapeutic levels. You will have to buy them like a drug, at drug prices after having consulted a doctor.
There is absolutely no precedent in free societies for restricting access to products or activities to levels that are completely risk free.
Let’s not even get into the question of tobacco and alcohol, which are freely available to adults with some minor regulation on their sale and consumption.
Aspirin causes intestinal bleeding, water can drown people, driving a car causes accidents and free speech offends people who are easily offended. Yet politicians and bureaucrats do not seek to ban aspirin, water, driving or free speech. For vitamins, herbs and minerals, however, some authorities seem to believe that unique safety criteria are needed. Why?
They will say these nutrients could harm you. It’s true, it’s possible, but very unlikely. It seldom happens. Over the counter drugs, like aspirin, cause a thousandfold more harm. Medication, properly and improperly prescribed by doctors horrifically is the third biggest cause of death after heart disease and cancer.
So rather than spend so much time and money trying to stop the public buying supplements, how about taking a systematic look at reducing the number of needless deaths and illness caused by medical error and negligence in hospitals and surgeries, by reducing the number of unnecessary surgical procedures and improving the system for fully reporting and investigating such errors so as to reduce these tragic statistics?
Where’s the Research...?
They will say there has been no research to show that nutritional supplements work or are not harmful and therefore, until there is such research, supplements should be treated like drugs. This is specious and self-serving. There are thousands of valid scientific surveys showing the beneficial effects of supplements of various kinds. What is true is that there has been no research done that would satisfy the FDA in the same way that drugs are required to do. Nor is there likely to be, since it costs something like US$800m and 8 years to get such approval. Since supplements very rarely kill or harm people and drugs often do it a lot, it’s a nonsense to ignore existing research and demand proof of safety at FDA drug levels. Instead of insisting on something they know will never happen, they should be calling upon the universities and government to do more affordable research into the therapeutic effects of natural nutrients. Such research could easily be funded by taxes on the supplements industry.
If I sound as if I’ve got it in for doctors, it’s not true. I don’t. They are for the most part exceptional men and women who are genuinely dedicated to healing. They have spent years acquiring knowledge about the human body and treating disease that puts them in a class apart from the rest of us. Only a fool would ignore what a good one has to say. Nor is medicine an exact science or art. Mistakes can and do happen, there are honest differences of opinion on treatment and in many instances there are no sure answers to the diseases that kill us. The profession of healing, honourably practised, is one of the most highest callings there is.
If the financial incentive for the pharmaceutical companies to stop us buying supplements freely is readily apparent, it’s less clear why so many doctors get so hot and bothered about it? Why does logic on the subject fly out the door? Why do men and women of obvious goodwill feel that they have the right to interfere with our right to choose for ourselves?
The answer, I suspect, is a lack of clarity on the part of many doctors who muddle an over-developed sense of profession and financial livelihood with a genuine mission to relieve suffering. They convince themselves that we need to be protected from ourselves and that only they have the knowledge to do that. They actually believe that you and I should not take any therapeutic decision affecting our health and wellbeing on our own, without their say so. That is their province and they would liked to see laws put in place to prevent us doing so. This is an extraordinary arrogance and any physician espousing such a view should be taken to task by anyone who values their personal freedom.
We Know What’s Best....Trust Me!
They also say they want to protect us from the charlatans and dishonest businessmen out there. Well thanks a lot doc, but that’s not your job. That’s my job and there are already plenty of laws against dishonesty, the thing is to see that they are applied.
So should the nutritional supplements business be regulated?
Yes, indeed, to the extent that the consumer should be protected against cheats and liars. There are lots of villains and naughty fellows out there, not to mention the credulous and simple-minded trying to flog us all kind of tripe. Manufacturers of supplements should have to state exactly what they are selling, where its from and be effectively monitored so they formulate effectively and hygienically. Where there are known health risks these should be stated.
Other than that the public should be free to inform itself and to buy whatever nutritionalsupplements it wants.
The beneficial effects of such freedom would be mega and something to shoot for. If government and the medical profession placed more weight on preventative medicine and the part that nutritional supplementation and healthy lifestyle plays in preventing and curing disease, and combined that with hi-tech medicine, then we really would be getting somewhere in creating better and more affordable health for all.
One way or another something’s got to change. We simply cannot go on spending on high-tech medicine in the way that we are.
NOTE:
A comprehensive review of 484,000 scientific studies from peer-reviewed health, nutritional and scientific journals on the efficacy of 50 selected nutrients in preventing, retarding, and treating disease now exists. The research shows a significant body of evidence that the 50 selected nutrients are not only effective at preventing, retarding and improving disease but they are effective at both preventative and much higher therapeutic dosage levels than hitherto supposed. E-mail for further information.
They genuinely seem to believe that you and I should not be permitted to take any therapeutic decision affecting our health and wellbeing on our own, without their say so.
