The recent media has claimed that when put to the test, America's most trusted supplements failed. I would suggest that it is the deceptive reporting, influenced by sensationalism, politics, monetary gain, and a pharmaceutical industry that has failed Americans!

Further research by individuals is needed to find the real truth before rejecting supplements that can be helpful. Robert Bazell, chief science and health correspondent of NBC (6/21/06), reminds us that medical reality often doesn't match the 'spin,' and scientific facts can be made to fit the perception desired.

Richard Smith, M.D., who was editor for the British Medical Journal for 25 years, suggests that medical journals are an extension of the marketing arm of the pharmaceutical companies and lists ways test results are easily skewed.

Here are only a few: conduct a trial of your drug against a treatment known to be inferior, trial your drugs against a too low dose of a competitor's drug (making yours seem less toxic), present results that are most likely to impress (reporting in relative risks rather than absolute risks), and only selecting the publications from centers that give favorable results.

Dr. Beatrice Golomb, MD, PhD, Assistant Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Diego, suggests that drug companies start divulging all placebo ingredients - this would help eliminate the pharmaceutical industry's cynical manipulation of test data.

June Russell

 

Note from Chet { http://dayzines.com   http://chetday.com } : June has a detailed and interesting article about placebo at  http://www.jrussellshealth.com/placebo.html