Vitamin C Foundation Responds to Vitamin Bashing


"If the claims for vitamin C are correct, it might replace many lucrative and expensive medications. As they researched their book ASCORBATE, Hickey and Roberts began to wonder if Pauling's offense had been to discuss openly the properties of a substance that threatens the profitability of medicine. "



Overview

Campaign Launched Against Dietary Supplements...


How to Counter the Propaganda Campaign Aimed at Medical Alternatives


Who Has the Power to Plant Fake Health Science News Stories in the Media?



Diagnosis: Corruption...
NIH scientists today continue to maintain that taking more than 200 milligrams of vitamin C per day is worthless because any amount beyond the 200 mg consumption point is excreted in the urine and will not raise blood concentrations





Foundation Responds to 'Old Media' Vitamin Bashing


There is now a clear dual assault on the natural healthcare sector. Adverse regulations and negative media are working to dent consumer confidence and restrict the ability of practitioners and companies to work in this field...


What do you call people who risk the global public health trying to sell more prescription drugs?  


Recent Examples


Media Story: Mothers' Vitamin C Intake in Pregnancy Is Associated With Wheeze during Child's Second Year
Probably "planted" to blunt the following stories:
  1. Lack of Vitamin C Linked to Respiratory Disorders ...
  2. Antioxidants Linked to Lower Asthma Risk ...
  3. Premature Birth, Life-long Developmental Problems, Linked to Low Vitamin C Levels During Pregnancy...


Media Story: Study claims high-dose vitamin C (greater than 300 milligrams per day) increases mortality rates among diabetic women.
  1. Excellent Bill Sardi response to this story.
    In the vitamin C study, researchers reported relative mortality rates nearly doubled among diabetics who had experienced a stroke and who took high-dose vitamin C. But in real numbers, the risk rose by 1.9 deaths for every 1000 years of living in this group of women. The increased risk is still very, very low, about 1 extra death every 30 years. It’s a miniscule statistical increase.
  2. Does Vitamin C Harm Diabetics?.. By Steve Hickey, PhD and other articles from Dr. Saul's excellent DoctorYourSelf.com newsletter.


Media Story: Study: Vitamin E Increases Mortality
In the vitamin E study the actual rise in mortality was only about 1/10th of 1 percent. The overall risk was still very low.

Probably "planted" to blunt the following stories:

  1. Vitamin E wards off Lou Gehrig's disease...
  2. VITAMIN E: THE FACTS...
  3. 40 percent of diabetic patients can REDUCE their risk of heart attacks and of dying from heart disease by taking vitamin E supplements...
  4. FOUNDATION RESPONDS TO VITAMIN E BASHING...


Media Story: Vitamin C 'Causes' Arthritis.

Egregious, biased errors in the Duke University research and news release on vitamin C... Vitamin C and Osteoarthritis, Virginia Kraus paper
"Guinea pigs fed low doses of vitamin C showed the least signs of knee arthritis, Kraus said, but since they also tended to weigh much less than the medium- or high-dose animals, reductions in weight might explain that result."

Probably "planted" to blunt the following stories:

  1. Vitamin C can help beat arthritis...
  2. Tale of Two Arthritis Stories - A clue to the existence of a behind-the-scenes propaganda campaign against nutritional supplements.


Media Story: Antioxidants Cause More Stomach Cancer
Probably "planted" to blunt the following stories:
  1. Vitamin C intake offers protection against stomach cancer ...
    Can there be any doubt that drug companies manipulate 'science' and influence media spin? According to the Lancet story that made headlines, your mortality risk of dying from cancer by taking vitamins supplements is increased by 1 per cent. Lest we forget, your mortality risk from not getting your vitamins is 100 per cent. These political, unscientific 'hit pieces' appear regularly in the world media, at great expense to the public health. Expect more coordinated scare tactics from a corrupt trillion dollar cartel which faces "unfair" competition from cheap, safe and effective vitamins, minerals, herbs and amino acids..
  2. Low Vitamin C Linked to Stomach Cancer...
  3. Lancet Meta-Analysis On Antioxidants and Cancer -- Old News Wrapped In Tabloid-Style Headlines...



Media Story: Vitamin C May Not Boost Exercise
Foundation responds...



Media Story: Gene expression technology is being used in a new trial to assess the safety of high doses of vitamin C?
"Nobody has used gene expression data before, [for this purpose]" - Joseph Lunec.
Most species make 100 times more vitamin C daily, on average and adjusted for body weight, than the recommended daily allowance for humans. What would "gene expression" tell us about vitamin C induced 'damage' at these natural levels in the wild?

Water is considered more dangerous than vitamin C, by the way.



What Doesn't Make the news


Antioxidant Combo Decreases Smokers' Cancer Risk ...
NEW LOOK, OLD FINNISH DATA! contradicts long held and widely reported belief that beta carotene increases cancer risk in smokers...
In the 'new' study, researchers from Yale University and other US institutes together with colleagues from the National Public Health Institute in Helsinki, Finland analysed the same data but looked at the total intake of antioxidants, including selenium, vitamin E, vitamin C as well as carotenoids and flavonoids, rather than one single antioxidant.

The researchers report that smokers in the top quintile of dietary antioxidant intake had a 16 per cent lower risk of lung cancer compared to those with the lowest intake.

Smokers who ate large amounts of meat had a 25 per cent decrease, despite red meat having a high oxidative effect.

The results counter the earlier findings of the Finnish ATBC study, carried out in the 90s, which found an increased risk of the disease for smokers with high beta-carotene intake.




Oregon State U. study contradicts national findings on supplements...




PRIMER: Designing experiments to show antioxidants have no benefit...
"How to design an experiment to show antioxidants provide no advantage. It is quite easy to bias the experiments but just in case any medical researcher missed it, we state the main rules here." - Dr. Steve Hickey


"According to newly revealed science, the belittled mega-dose vitamin C users may be purchasing the cheapest and most effective health insurance one can buy."


THE TRUTH ABOUT THE DRUG COMPANIES...
"The most startling fact about 2002 is that the combined profits for the ten drug companies in the Fortune 500 ($35.9 billion) were more than the profits for all the other 490 businesses put together ($33.7 billion).[12] When I say this is a profitable industry, I mean really profitable. It is difficult to conceive of how awash in money big pharma is." -Marcia Angell, a former editor of the New England Journal Of Medicine
Frontline Interview with Former NEJM Editor...
[Interview]


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