Category Archives: Rants

Antidepressant Use in America. A Depressing Situation.

Don’t like the way your husband is handling the family finances?  Take some antidepressants! Angry with the school about your child’s report card? Take some antidepressants.  According to a government funded study, more Americans take antidepressants than any other drug family. Over 118 million prescriptions were written last year which is up a staggering 48% over the past decade. Some of this increase is the fact that more physicians are becoming adept at diagnosing the disease but I feel that the majority of it is due to marketing done by the pharmaceutical industry. Dr. Richard Dworkin even states, “Doctors are now medicating unhappiness. Too many people take drugs when they really need to be making changes in their lives.”

While depression is a serious disorder, there are way too many cases where physicians are prescribing drugs for issues that have nothing to do with the disease. These medications have serious side effects and should be used only when a clinical diagnosis of depression is clear. Still, an even better solution would be to try using amino acid therapy first. The book The Healing Nutrients Within recalls many stories of patients with depression improving using amino acid therapy.

It’s so much about profits, so little about really helping patients. Amino acids can help people far more than antidepressants can. They just won’t make the pharmaceutical industry any money. America, the land where we medicate unhappiness.

Bipolar Disorders and Children – Growing Epidemic or Drug Company Bonanza?

Nothing is as painful as having a child with emotional issues. I should know, I have one. My daughter Tasya has had emotional problems ever since she started having epileptic seizures 7 years ago. She has had mood swings and temper tantrums which by themselves is not unusual (most kids go through that) but the number and severity has been a problem. Most every doctor we see wants to put her on one medication after another without regard to the potential for long term damage.

In a report coming from the British magazine, New Scientist, they question whether doctors in the United States are too quick to treat children with what they are diagnosing as bipolar disorder. Since 1996 the number of children being diagnosed with this behavioral problem went from 13 out of every 100,000 to 73 out of every 100,000 in 2004, a five-fold jump in the number of diagnoses in a scant 8 years. Children as young as 3 are being diagnosed with the disease despite the absolute ridiculousness of even attempting to diagnoses this in children that young.

The use of psychotropic drugs on young children should be viewed as a crime unless there is overwhelming evidence. The fact that we have absolutely no evidence that in the long-term, these drugs are anywhere near safe should be a red-flag. Add to that the fact that a child who was 4 years old has died when given not one, not two, but three drugs for supposedly having a bipolar disorder. The child, Rebecca Riley, was given clonidine, Depakote (anti-convulsant also known as valproic acid) and the anti-psychotic Seroquel (quetiapine fumarate). Her parents are on trial to see if they deliberately overdose her or it was an accident. My finger is pointing straight at the physicians who prescribed the drugs to this unfortunate little girl with the hopes of stabilizing her mood.

No other country is seeing this increase in the incidence of bipolar disorder despite following the same guidelines from the DSM-IV (the official psychiatric manual).  Instead of seeking natural and much, much safer means, drug companies are throwing parties for doctors who would prescribe their money making drugs for children. My daughter had enormous success and improvement in mood and seizure activity following her eliminating foods that were causing an inflammatory response (LEAP MRT Test). Amino acid therapy, nutrition and even psychotherapy should be our first line of attack on neuropsychiatric disorders and NOT harsh and life threatening drugs.

Thankfully the editors at the New Scientist call into question whether the diagnoses and treatments are real, or as I suspect, profit driven by an increasingly money hungry pharmaceutical industry.

Is the FDA About to Ban Supplements?

There is no doubt in my mind that some people (not the majority) in the Food and Drug Administration would like nothing better than to stop the public from having access to nutritional supplements in order to help their buddies in the harmaceutical industry to sell more drugs. A recent attempt was made to grab more power over supplements but it was defeated by the power of the public and lobby efforts from the supplement industry as well as Senators Orin Hatch (R-Utah) and Tom Harkin (D-Nebraska). Unfortunately, the fear mongers out there who want you to donate money to their pet charities (themselves), continue to say that bill SR-1082 will give the FDA the ability to control supplement use above and beyond the DSHEA law already on the books. This is simply not true.

If you follow this link, you can read the truth of the situation along with a transcript of the discussion between Hatch, Harkin, Kennedy and Enzi about protecting DSHEA.  As a matter of fact here is a quote from Senator Enzi of Wyoming, “Yes we took great pains to make certain that there would be no conflict with DSHEA.” Senator Harkin further stated “So to make this absolutely clear, what you are saying is that the bill we are debating would in no way interfere with consumers’ access to dietary supplements.” Senator Hatch even said that the language in the bill would be beneficial to consumers.

Come on, stop the fear-mongering and spend more time making sure the supplement industry gets rid of unscrupulous purveyors of garbage and multi-level companies who promise the moon at super high prices and deliver nothing more than overpriced junk. This is what we need to work on, not scaring people half to death about an issue that isn’t.

Multivitamin Use Causes an Increase in Prostate Cancer? Not!!!

In a paper published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, Dr. Goran Bjelakovic (a noted anti-supplement warrior and well known harmaceutical shill) along with Dr. Christian Gluud insinuate that men taking multivitamins seven days a week have a much higher risk of dying of prostate cancer than those who take none. They further go on to dribble that their findings “underscore the possibility that antioxidant supplements could have unintended consequences for our health.”  You know, if I were as bad of a scientist and published garbage like this, I wouldn’t be allowed to speak at any conferences ever again. There are so many flaws and misjudgements in this as to be embarrassing to the National Cancer Institute.

Here are a few problems off the top of my head.

  1. Men who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer are more likely to take multivitamins than those with no health issues. This was not looked at.
  2. The use of multivitamins was done using an intake questionnaire which is notorious for false numbers.
  3. The authors had no idea how long any of the people in the study used the multi vitamins a truly serious flaw.
  4. They claim that the population in question was “well nourished” despite a lot of evidence to the contrary. Our food supply is notorious for poor nutrient levels (see my blog).
  5. They used a cohort study which does not look at all of the variables possible. Statistics are easily manipulated (as they are here) to find something you want to find regardless of whether it really is there or not.
  6. There is no way, using the data supplied that a causative relationship can be developed. The authors admit this yet make conclusions that suggest a causal relationship. This is scientific dishonesty at its worse.

There are more problems with this paper but my biggest issue is how it got out of peer-review unless it was done nefariously, with a pointed agenda attached, aka anti-supplement. As I mentioned earlier, these are well-known anti-nutrient shills and this should be made very well known before giving any credence to the paper.

Shame on the National Cancer Institute.

Phthalates in Toys – Time for a Ban

In their drive to make money, a number of toy manufacturers have thought nothing of having known toxins in the goods they sell to children. They bury their heads in research, funded by industry, that flies in the face of what unbiased science tells us which is that phthalates and Bisphenol A have no place in a childs world.  Here is a well written article about the subject, thanks to my friend David Vaughn, who has the best food nutrient diet software program anywhere.

Breast Cancer and Hormone Replacement Therapy – A Major Indictment

In the April 19th, 2007 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, a special report was issued showing a significant drop in the incidence of breast cancer starting in mid-2002 through 2003 due in large part, according to the authors, to the drop in the use of hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) due to the release of the Women’s Health Initiative report. The decrease was largest in women over the age of 50, those most likely to use HRT.

An observation I have is that this study shows the effects of artificial hormones that are prescribed to women but what about the multitude of toxins in our environment that have estrogenic effects like bisphenol A?  How about phthalates?  What about all those other chemicals that are known to disrupt the endocrine system?  Our bodies, male or female, are awash with these carcinogenic chemicals. This is why it is critical to do what you can to avoid exposure and to get your body efficient at detoxifying itself.

Another issue I have here is how the pharmaceutical industry has responded to this travesty. Instead of a mia culpa, it is attacking natural hormone replacement therapy produced by compounding pharmacies. These are far safer than the horse urine derived toxins the harmaceutical industry foisted on unsuspecting women. Senator Ted Kennedy is helping his harma buddies by introducing a bill to ban compounding pharmacy’s from making this and other healthy compounds. Shame on Mr. Kennedy for being so blatantly purchased by an industry that continues to put out one dangerous drug (Vioxx, et al) after another.

An Addendum to Yesterday’s Post

Yesterday I discussed the problems within the supplement business, today’s headlines bring more distressing news, one company, Hi-Tech Pharmaceuticals, has had a multi-charge indictment put on it and it’s principals that reads like a description of all that is wrong with the nutritional supplement industry. This puts a nasty blanket of suspicion on all of us, regardless of the fact that most companies are stand-up citizens who produce good products and follow the law to the letter and then some.

In a well researched article on MSNBC, the reporter lays out a sordid tale of deception, illegal dealings and discussions of murder and blackmail. The company was found to have added the drug Cialis to their herbal “male-enhancement” supplement, which is something I have been privy to being done by others in the supplement industry. This is where our industry needs to be stronger, policing itself with more vigor and speed than ever before. If not, the FDA will step in and regulate nutritional supplements in a a far heavier handed way than is necessary.

Hey Supplement Industry – Get Your Act Together!!!

With all of the cry wolf alternative health fear mongers falsely claiming that CODEX is coming to America, they won’t discuss the supplement industries ugly secret which is how poorly we self-regulate our industry. In a report garnering headlines at MSNBC.com, a number of supplements which claim to contain chondroitin, either didn’t or had much less than the labels claimed. This is intolerable in our industry and almost beckons government intervention.

Instead of whining about a false impending doom called CODEX (which by the way cannot come to fruition in the US because of the DSHEA bill), start getting going after the lousy manufacturers and distributors who sell crap to consumers. If this trend of bad publicity continues, then the FDA has no choice but to step in and increase surveillance. In my opinion the biggest screamers against FDA interference are those who produce lousy products or people who use questionable practices in their clinics. There is one women, who claims to be a doctor (and is a total fraud), charges $14K to come to a clinic she works at to inject people with a protocol so lacking in science, but high in hype, that people line up to have the work done on them. Unfortunately for many, the results are disastrous. I have worked with a number of them, some physicians, who have had horrible side-effects, some lasting for years.

Maybe the time has come for intelligent regulation of this industry. Sadly, as with most regulation, it will come at a terrible price.

Another Stupid CNN Anti-Supplement Article

You would think by now, CNN would monitor its writers for accuracy but in the case of Caleb Hellerman, I guess he gets a free pass. His article posted on the CNN website today is such a load of garbage that you would have to wonder where this writer gets his paycheck from. Entitled No scientific evidence diet supplements work this pile of trash is unbelievably poorly written and so lacking in honesty, I think it should be listed under fiction instead of being on a news website.

His claim that there is no evidence that nutritional supplements would is a bold faced and unadulterated lie. There are so many studies showing efficacy that he should be ashamed to have even written this drivel. My challenge to Hellerman is that I can come up with 10 studies showing benefits to every one that shows otherwise. His bringing up the embarrassing recent Danish study which purports to show that antioxidant nutrients may shorten life spans should tell you that his prejudice regarding supplements cloud his judgement. The study was so flawed and so obviously twisted since it clearly eliminated any study showing benefits to antioxidant nutrients that no scientist with any credibility would take it seriously. I challenge Hellerman to subscribe to to an email put out by Tishcon called Vitasearch which comes out weekly with studies showing benefits of nutritional supplements from numerous peer-reviewed journals around the world.

This clearly biased writer (cannot call him a reporter as this would imply his ability to report the truth) also states, “studies have found virtually no evidence supplements improve health your health.” Is he really serious?  Can he be that dishonest? I guess so. What would motivate a writer to so blatantly write nonsense like this is beyond me unless there is something nefarious going on. Either that or he is illiterate and unable to read research papers that number in the thousands that show benefits to taking supplements.

Shame on Hellerman and even more shame on CNN for writing this person a paycheck and publishing his crap.

Medicare Fraud – A La Congress

If you missed last weeks Sixty Minutes broadcast on CBS TV, you probably aren’t seething as much as those of us who did. Turns out, that nice little Medicare reform bill that was supposed to make life better for senior citizens did nothing more that enrich the most profitable industry of all, the pharmaceutical (herein renamed harmaceutical).

Our Congress, led by Republican’s, passed a bill that is so one-sided for a particular industry that I believe that criminal charges of theft should be filed against every Congressman that voted for the bill. It will cost you and me, the taxpayers, an estimated 534 billion dollars. The bill disallows Medicare from negotiating with the harmaceutical companies to lower prices for drugs. This should make everyone of you completely outraged. If you want to read the story, click here to go to the CBS website.  Just be prepared to be angered.

Until Americans demand lobbyist reform, we will continue to be ripped off, our taxes stolen from us and our health will be at the mercy of profiteers. The Senate is trying to pass a bill to reverse this travesty but guess what?  The Republicans are fighting it and the President has threatened a veto if passed. Who does he work for?  You can bet it isn’t for the American people.