Proven Guilty
television, or be the doctors’ most highly recommended multivitamin, if it really contains the many hazardous chemicals
stated on its label’s ingredient list?
The truth is that the FDA does not regulate the vitamin industry because unlike drugs, dietary supplements fall within
the regulation of the Dietary Supplement & Health Act (1993). The DSHEA puts the responsibility for quality control &
safety in the hands of the manufacturer, whose best interests are served by producing quality products whose efficacy
and safety ensure repeat sales. This protects the small, privately owned manufacturers who would not be able to
make available beneficial products to the public, if, like the drug industry, they had to expend millions of dollars up
front in performing clinical trials, and various toxicological studies. Because dietary supplements consist primarily of
herbs and food extracts, whose safety rating is infinitely higher** than that of synthetically produced pharmaceutical
drugs, self-regulation rarely fails to fulfill the expectations of the DSHEA. In fact, it has allowed for affordable, safe
and effective health care alternatives for millions of Americans. The demand for natural products and alternatives is
growing exponentially and has increasingly drawn the attention of corporations who have an interest in capitalizing on
this movement, but who had formed no part in its organic development; to the contrary, have fought it every step of the
way.
It is the search for profits that brings in pharmaceutical companies like Wyeth, whose operating principles run
diametrically opposed to that of the natural industry. And significant problems emerge when large, publicly traded
corporations enter the natural products industry who have no authentic desire to promote health. To the contrary, their
only real motivation is to make as much profit as is possible, and to fulfill its fiduciary responsibilities to its
shareholders. Instead of using higher quality, and more expensive ingredients, they opt for cheap, synthetically
produced chemicals, that ensure high profit margins. Instead of producing a positive product, they spend millions
upon millions of dollars advertising away the product’s negative nature, until the power of television and misinformation
turn it into a profitable product.
The excipients found in Centrum, e.g. hypromellose, crospovidone, BHT, etc. are commonly found in pharmaceutical
drugs. Though most supplement manufacturers decline to use the chemical additives found in Centrum, they are
considered acceptable by the United States Pharmacopea and FDA standards. The drug industry, in cooperation with
the chemical industry, have played a significant role in gaining acceptance for these questionable, biologically
unprecedented additives.
The FDA’s “Weight of Evidence” standard for determining the toxicity of a given chemical, is based on the concept that
synthetic and biologically unprecedented substances are safe until proven guilty. It places the burden of proof on
those who challenge the use of substance by direct laboratory tests, from not one but from many epidemiological
studies, that the substance not only causes disease, but that it will cause that disease in the human population in its
approved use! The inherent insanity of this approach hinges on the fact that proving toxicity in humans requires that
we perform potentially dangerous tests on humans, in order to prove that the substance we are testing isn't toxic! This
borders on immoral behavior, and is at the least, incredibly impractical.
Moreover, since so much of the research done on novel new synthetic chemicals is funded by the companies whose
interests are to find the substance safe, the likelihood of finding this toxicity is very small - that is, until, after years and
years of use in the marketplace the chemicals are eventual shown to contribute to disease. Because the toxicities may
be low, and take many years, even decades to manifest in a clinically discerned symptom, it may be impossible to
separate them out as dangerous.
The ultimate reason why companies use inorganic chemicals like ferrous fumarate, versus safer and more bioavailable
forms like ferrous bisglycinate is because it is cheaper and more profitable to use these riskier substances.Ultimately
Big Pharma's interests are soley to itself and its “shameholders,” and until consumers speak out and hold these
corporations accountable, nothing will change.
Anyone with commonsense comprehends that since the inception of our species, and of life itself on this planet,
organisms have derived their sustenance from FOOD. The type of iron found in cookware is not the same as the kind
found in a steak (heme iron), or in curry powder (non-heme iron). Plant or mammalian forms of iron are bound up in
amino acids, food cofactors, and have a conformational state that represents an immense amount of intelligence (i.e.
protein chaperones bound to the iron allow it to be delivered to the right place in the biological system, and properly
utilized once there) and energy (i.e. the ability to do biological work) that does not occur in its inorganic forms.
Molecular weight, i.e the mass or weight of the elemental nutrient, does not tell us if or how readily it will be absorbed,
and what it will do once it makes it into our blood. This metaphysical illusion, namely, that the “real” substance of
something is what is mathematically real, or decomposable to its fundamental elements, is the basis for so much
confusion and misinformation in our concept of nutrition and medicine today. Real food, and real nutritional
supplementation can not be replaced by synthetic isolates, or worse, novel chemical entities which have never before
been introduced into the human body or metabolism. And ultimately, anything that contains ingredients that have
demonstrated pronounced toxicity, in any mammal, and at any dose, should not be legally permitted to be included in a
product claiming to be a dietary supplement.
**NOTE: According to Dr. Barbara Starfield's article: "Is US health really the best in the world?" published in the Journal
of American Medicine, 2000 Jul 26; 284(4): 483-5, "non-error, negative effects of drugs" (i.e. correctly prescribed
drugs!) kill 106,000 deaths per year.
