Lies, Damn Lies, Statistics and Medical Journals

August 16th, 2005

This week the British Medical Journal published a study which reported that older people don’t benefit from taking a nutritional supplement. A few months ago, the same journal published another study that reported Multivitamins Won’t Ward Off Infection in Elderly – Senior Health, Aging and Elder Care Health Conditions Show No Decrease in Infection among the elderly who took supplements. Another articles in The Lancet and the British Medical Journal trumpets supplements don’t reduce the risk of fracture in the elderly. And David Bender graced the pages of the British Medical Journal with an editorial incorrectly asserting that we have no biomarkers for optimal health and that there is no point to a daily multivitamin for the elderly.

Years ago someone who knew a lot about a lot said, “The answer has to make sense”. So does this make sense? Nope! No sense at all. Well, then, what’s wrong with this picture? These are reputable journals, right? Peer reviewed, right? So the articles must be real science, right? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

Here’s what’s wrong. The study on infection used a vitamin pill with values so low that they match what we can expect in Codex’s standards. And they had, as they are designed to have, no effect on keeping people healthy as they were intended not to have. Here are the nutrient contents of the supplement in the infection study with the amount that I take of each substance on a health-promotion basis in bold for comparison:

800 µg vitamin A (acetate) REL: 50,000 µg , 60 mg vitamin C REL:6,000 mg, 5 µg vitamin D3 REL:6,000 µg, 10 mg vitamin E (D, L-{alpha} tocopheryl acetate) REL:1,200 IU mixed tocopherols, 1.4 mg thiamin (mononitrate)REL:100 mg, 1.6 mg riboflavinREL:100 mg, 18 mg niacin (nicotinamide)REL:1000 mg, 6 mg pantothenic acid (calcium D-pantothenate)REL:400 mg, 2 mg pyridoxine (hydrochloride)REL:50 mg, 1 µg vitamin B12, REL:1000 µg , 200 µg folic acidREL:25,000 µg, 14 mg iron (fumurate) REL:0 mg, 150 µg iodine (potassium iodide)REL:150 µg, 0.75 mg copper (gluconate)REL:1 mg, 15 mg zinc (oxide)REL:25 mg, and 1 mg manganese (sulphate)REL:10 mg. The doses I take are those that I typically recommend for a health adult who wants to stay that way. I take 100 times as much Vitamin C, 1200 times the Vitamin D, 55.5 times as much niacin, and 25,000 times as much folic acid as test subjects recieved. So what the authors are actually testing is pretty close to the the Risk Assessment values which Coydex wants make the universal standard. Risk Assessment, you will remember, is a branch of toxicology and the Risk Assessment values of Vitamins and Minerals are those which are chosen because they have no effect on any human being! So of course they did not show an impact. DUH!

So guess what, here it is, hot off the press: Ultra low dose nutrients actually don’t work! But wait: what’s this? Buried deep in the study is the following fascinating set of statements: “Our participants were similar in age and place of residence to those studied in a previous, disputed trial that reported beneficial effects from supplementation…. Unlike our trial, the supplement used in the previous trial had four times the levels of vitamin E and vitamin B12 and also contained selenium, magnesium, calcium, and {beta} carotene. (emphasis added) ….Supplementation, especially of trace elements, has been shown to reduce infections in older people in nursing care with higher levels of nutritional deficiency….We cannot exclude the possibility that the intakes provided in the supplement were inadequate to affect the immune system.

These nutrient levels were either carefully chosen to show no impact (which is highly unethical considering the impact on human health and well-being if therapeutic dosages of these nutrients had been given) or the authors are astonishingly incompetence scientists who committed a large number of subjects, scientist hours, journal pages, etc., to experiments designed by nincompoops. If the latter is the case, then the peer reviewers and all the department chairmen involved were nincompoops, too. And while I have seen my share of academic nincompoops, I don’t think that is the explanation here. Remember, the answer has to make sense.

No, I believe these articles are part of the poison press against safe, simple, effective and non toxic health choices.

So I have a couple of questions about these studies (which are questions I always ask): Who funded these studies? Who wrote the articles? The principle author or a ghost writer? What are the financial interests of the authors in the outcomes of the studies? Who chose the level of nutrients to be tested and upon what basis?

And, most important, why did these well educated people want to perform studies that “show” nutrients have no value so badly that they shamed themselves in front of anyone who understands biochemistry, scientific methodology or medical ethics?

I guess I would feel better if they were nincompoops.

Yours in health and freedom,
Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director

FDA Funnies!

August 14th, 2005

We all know that the FDA is not a level playing field since everything tips toward pharma medicine and away from Natural Nutritional Medicine (NNM). No news there, unfortunately. However, NewsTarget.com sent this out and asked people to share it. Please read and enjoy! (And then consider what we need to do so that it no longer would be true!) It’s a bit long but worth the effort.

_____________________________________________________________

Need a job? NewsTarget.com has just received word on several openings for cushy jobs with the FDA. Why keep working in powerless civilian positions when you can get paid by the government and wield power over others! Here’s what the agency is looking for:

PROPAGANDA OFFICER
No scientific background necessary. As a Propaganda Officer, you will help the FDA invent and dispense information that discredits products, companies and ideas that threaten FDA control over the monopolistic drug industry. Previous experience in a pharmaceutical company preferred. A background in public relations, communications or used car sales is a plus.

Career opportunities abound at the FDA, and it’s easy to succeed with this job since the mainstream press will print practically anything you say, regardless of whether it makes any scientific sense, as long as it’s on official FDA letterhead. Starting salary: $75,000 plus a license to kill any idea (or health business) you don’t like.

SCIENCE CENSOR
Have a scientific background? Put it to good use at the FDA as a respected Science Censor. Your job will be to bury all the scientific findings that harm the prestige and credibility of the FDA. Your main job is making sure all the drugs we’ve approved continue to be seen as safe, even when clinical studies reveal otherwise.

A variety of high-tech tools will be at your disposal. You’ll have direct phone lines to all the medical journals, a team of paralegals to generate legal threats, and you’ll even have your own personal shredder right beside the incoming fax machines where doctors fax voluntary drug side effects reports. Help us keep dangerous drugs on the market for as long as possible, and you’ll earn big performance bonuses!

Starting salary is $35,000 from the FDA, plus a $250,000 annual bonus paid by various drug companies, based on merit.

CHIEF OPPRESSION OFFICER
Ever wanted to carry a gun? Now you can wield power as an FDA employee, conducting armed raids on clinics where dangerous criminals are conducting illicit operations like healing people with prayer or teaching patients about nutrition. You can even raid buses full of senior citizens returning from medication-buying trips in Canada or Mexico! Previous military experience is a plus, ex-Gitmo interrogators preferred. (Duct tape and broomsticks provided upon request.)

No scientific or medical knowledge required, since you don’t really need to understand the reasons why you’re conducting armed raids. Just follow management’s orders, and we’ll hand you a gun and a badge, all in the name of protecting the public from the criminals of alternative medicine.

Starting salary is $65,000 plus all the free Prozac you can swallow.
(Antidepressant side effects are a plus in your line of work.)

KICKBACK COORDINATOR
As the Kickback Coordinator, your job is to keep tabs on FDA managers’ investments in pharmaceutical companies. You will maximize investment portfolios, produce reports that identify which drugs the FDA should approve next in order to boost shareholder profits, and serve as a courier for illicit cash exchanges.

There is no starting salary, but you do get a percentage of the kickbacks you manage. Criminal background preferred, mob ties are a plus.

MORALE OFFICER
The FDA’s morale has been harmed lately by utterly false accusations from certain FDA whistleblowers. As a Morale Officer, your job will be to keep all FDA employees in line as a way of boosting overall morale and work efficiency. It’s good for the economy!

To enforce proper morale among FDA employees, especially those involved in drug safety operations, you will be granted insider access to top-secret FDA technologies currently under development, including our “Graham buster” verbal silencer (patents pending) and a building-wide subliminal program broadcast system. “All profitable drugs are safe… All profitable drugs are safe…”

Salary: $85,000 plus free unlimited cable television.

CANADA BASHER
Do you share our hatred for those snooty Socialist Canadians? Join the FDA as a full-time Canada basher, and get paid to do what you love
best: insult Canada!

As you may know, the free market sales of prescription drugs from Canada threatens the FDA-controlled monopoly market for drugs in the U.
S. We need help to discredit Canada so that gullible U.S. consumers will distrust Canadian pharmacies and keeping shelling out their hard-earned cash at overpriced U.S. pharmacies (which we regulate and control, of course).

We already have a few old tricks to assist you in this job, like claiming that terrorists will poison all the drugs in Canada. You will have to come up with other strategies like claiming that Canadian pharmacies have no quality control, unlike U.S. pharmacies where pharmacists never, ever make mistakes.

Salary: $45,000 plus unlimited free drugs from Canada.

PUBLIC SAFETY PROGRAM DIRECTOR
In this role, you will actually work to protect the public from unsafe ingredients in foods, drugs and cosmetics. This is not really a full-time job. In fact, you do not even need to show up.

No experience necessary, in anything. No education required. Starting salary is minimum wage. You must bring your own desk to work, if you want one. That is, if you actually want to work at all.

HOW TO APPLY
Are you qualified for one or more of these prestigious positions at the FDA? Apply online at the FDA website, and if hired, you could soon wield government-sanctioned power over your fellow citizens. It’s a dream job, with outstanding job security. As long as you can help us make sure people never have access to genuine healing therapies, you’ll always have a job with us!

Laugh a Little!

August 13th, 2005

Sometimes the best way to make a serious point is with humor and wit. Richard Brodie has made that clear. After I wrote a blog (Help Shape the Grassroots Campaign) asking for suggestions for slogans to capture the imagination of America, many of you wrote in with wonderful suggestions. Richard went one further: first, he wrote a limerick for us:

There were “Food Rules” once, very nefarious,
With which Bayer intended to bury us.
But we said “Go to hell!”
To Big Pharma’s cartel,
And “Screw you, Codex ALIMENTARIUS!”

But wait! There’s More! Then he wrote a side splittingly funny annotated version of Susan Davis’ devastatingly bad bill, HR 3156 Davis bill is funny? No, but the annotation is wonderful and it is funny. Best of all, it makes the point beautifully.

Once you read it, share it widely via a link in your emails to the Natural Solutions Foundation guide to important Congressional bills, www.HealthFreedomUSA.org/bills

And share Richard’s limerick, too. CODEX is a bloated, pompous beast! Laugh at it and watch it deflate to a manageable size!

Yours in health and freedom (and laughter, too),

Rima E. Laibow, MD
Medical Director

Use Meetup.com To Meet Other Health Freedom Activists

August 11th, 2005

Hello,

This is Fox, web designer of HealthFreedomUSA.org. Dr. Laibow has asked me to write an entry in this blog. Alright, so I will share with you something that should lift your spirits.

Let me tell you a little bit about a fellow named Joe Trippi. Funny name, incredibly smart guy.

Joe Trippi is the author of The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (a book which I highly recommend to all health freedom activists). He was the campaign manager for the Dean for America 2004 campaign. And although Dean didn’t win, his campaign achieved some incredible successes.

Under Trippi’s leadership, the name “Howard Dean” went from total obscurity to having the big guys like Kerry trembling. Under Trippi’s leadership, the Dean campaign raised more money than the Kerry campaign.

Trippi made brilliant use of the power of the Internet to build community and get people together. Using the Internet, the Dean campaign raised over $7 million, mostly from $50 donations by thousands of individuals using their credit cards, sitting behind their computers.

Can we do the same for HealthFreedomUSA.org?

Maybe. We are launching Version 2 of HealthFreedomUSA.org in the next week, which will link to Meetup.com. Take a look at Meetup.com: it allows you to find people in your town who are interested in the same things you are interested in.

Regards,

– Fox
Web Designer
HealthFreedomUSA.org

P.S. Incidentally, Howard Dean is an M.D., and he graduated from the same med school as Dr. Laibow. Interesting. If anyone of you know Dr. Dean, please tell him about Dr. Laibow.

P.P.S. You can contact me via the commenting system of this blog. Click below.

Help Shape the Grass Roots Campaign

August 11th, 2005

OK, you know that you have power with your Congressional members. You also know that there are really, really serious threats to health freedom and Natural and Nutritional Medicine (NNM) afoot because of CODEX, the confluence of the major corporate interests of the Bigs: Big Pharma, Big Chema, Big Agrabiz, Big Biotechna and Big Medica. You know that they can buy and sell political influence six ways to Sunday because of their legal and illegal influence peddling and limitless budgets. They are powerful, but they are not invincible, by any means! One of the things that they cannot stand is strong public pressure. Let’s give it to them!

Here is my question to you: Are you, a Little like me, ready to use the power we have to counter the Bigs? I sure am. That is exactly what I am doing when I battle CODEX with radio shows, articles, blogs, lectures, etc., etc. Remember the lobbyist’s advice: “This is a winnable battle if you can mobilize the grass roots. Get groups of people to visit the members of Congress in their local offices and let them know you mean business”.

Organizing a grass roots effort is a big, big task. We will help you. I will provide you with organizing outlines, flow charts and methods, conference calls, etc. to make it easy and successful to organize your fellow voters and get them involved in defeating CODEX.

But the way I figure it, every movement needs music and pity, memorable slogans to bring its message home to the hearts as well as the minds of the millions who will listen and join us. So here is my challenge: This is YOUR campaign every bit as much as it is mine! It’s your health, your longevity, your wellness we are talking about. I invite you to help design this campaign. Here’s how:

Music: If you have a link that plays a piece of music that you would like to share with the Health Freedom audience, send me a link in an email with your permission to post it and we will do exactly that! No obscenity, please. CODEX is quite obscene enough!

Slogans: We need strong, memorable and direct slogans to get people’s attention and give them a mental and emotional hook they can hang their well informed passion about CODEX upon. The Natural Solutions Foundation is fortunate enough to have a group I call our “War Council”. We meet often by phone and I know that I am deeply fortunate to have the diverse and wise council of this august group (not just in August, of course!) While we were talking about this very problem this evening we came up with a bunch of slogans. Picture them on signs in front of the White House and you get the feel for what we need very quickly.

As we were discussing the idea and developing the slogans when it suddenly occurred to me that YOU should be on the phone during this conversation, each one of you! Why? Because your passion, your humor, your creativity and your slant on the issues are vital to the ground swell of support that we are building. So send me your slogans, your suggestions for a theme for the grass roots campaign and your creative thoughts and we will post the ones that we believe we can use. In your email to me at rima.laibow@healthfreedomusa.org, along with the ideas they include a statement that you give us permission to use them, please.

This is a work in progress and I invite your participation. Here are the slogans we came up with in our brainstorming session. Tell us which ones work for you, which ones don’t and send us yours:

Pharma Fed = Pharma Dead

I’m Pharma Phed Up!

My Health – My Choice!

Drugs Kill – Vitamins Don’t!

My Way? DSHEA!

Americans Choose Health Not Drugs!

Health By Vitamins
or
Death by Drugs?

Death By CODEX!

CODEX: Latin for “Death”

Yours in health and freedom,
Dr. Laibow
Medical Director