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For Facts about Vitamins, Why Can't Parents Trust Big Pharmaceuticals?When it comes to children's nutrition facts about vitamins,it is difficult to know whom to trust because there is so much disagreement over the effectiveness of vitamins and supplements and because of corporate media censorship. Yes, it's true, censorship prevents parents from getting the whole truth regarding children's nutrition facts about vitamins. (I didn't believe media censorship existed until someone referred me to Sonoma State University web site called Project Censored). Focusing on the vitamin controversy, on one side there are traditional medical doctors and pharmaceutical companies defending patented medicines and attacking vitamins and supplements as proving ineffective and even dangerous. On the opposite side there are alternative physicians and vitamin companies, not only defending vitamins, but claiming vitamins are often superior than prescription medications for treating many diseases. What are the facts about vitamins? From the stand point of children's nutrition, since both sides are influenced by their respective financial interests involved, it is difficult to determine where the truth lies by simply relying on their word, particularly since there exist medical doctors in both camps. However the truth and credibility of their claims can be evaluated and this should help parents making decisions concerning children's nutrition and the facts about vitamins. Mainstream medicine and the major pharmaceutical companies have claimed vitamins are dangerous. While there appears to be agreement in both camps that certain vitamins can be dangerous, like iron for example, it is with vitamin C where there, particularly, exists major disagreements. Hence, we will examine the safety of vitamins, in general, compared to patented medications and, also, examine the credibility of those involved in the vitamin C controversy in order to help us decide whom to believe from a children's nutrition perspective on the facts about vitamins. Below, Dr. Philip Rudnick, Professor Emeritus, Chemistry, (http://www.thenhf.com/articles_27.htm)cites a five year study, excerpted from the "Journal of the American Medical Association" performed between 1993-1998. The findings were as follows:
Supplements/Herbs: more than 106,000 times more likely to die from a correctly prescribed doctor's prescription than from taking a vitamin supplement, one of the very important facts about vitamins. As a quick check on these findings, let's examine this graph of the statistical comparison of frequent causes of death in the USA (www.laleva.cc/petizione/english/ronlaw_eng.html). Examining the graph, note one has .0001% chance dying from supplements and a 5.18% chance of dying from properly prescribed drugs. In other words, correctly prescribed doctor's prescriptions are 50,000 times more likely to kill you than vitamin supplements. Children’s nutrition is a lot safer sticking to vitamins than drugs, even when drugs are correctly prescribed. From this information, it appears obvious that vitamin supplements are safe for children’s nutrition. This being the case, why do many medical doctors and pharmaceutical companies warn about their dangers, when the facts about vitamins support the opposite conclusion that doctor's correctly prescribed drugs are unsafe, in comparison to vitamins, and are the fourth leading killer in the United States after heart disease, cancer and smoking? From a children’s nutrition perspective, the following information may prove helpful in evaluating this question. According to Karl Loren's very credible and extensively documented web site:
A great deal of research bolsters Linus Pauling's belief that vitamin C can prevent heart disease, and both vitamin C and lysine can reverse heart disease. Why is vitamin C so effective in reversing heart disease? According to research by Rath and Pauling a local ascorbate (vitamin C) deficiency causes a crack to form in an artery. Then a form of low density lipoprotein, called apo(a) enters that crack and proceeds to initiate a repair process; however, this healing process is faulty and results in the accumulation of a mass of tissue that grows and can eventually clog the artery. How does vitamin C ameliorate this heart disease process? For children’s nutrition and facts about vitamins, let's count some of the many ways vitamin C prevents and fights heart disease:
This information about vitamin C adds to the pool of important facts about vitamins and their effectiveness. From a children’s nutrition perspective, vitamin C appears to do all the right things in reducing heart disease. Since some studies indicate cardiovascular disease can begin in childhood, extra vitamin C might be a perfect addition to a children’s nutrition program to prevent heart disease in children. The primary cause of cardiovascular disease is local ascorbate deficiency. The secondary causative factor is LDL apo (a). Cholesterol lowering drugs don't appear to have much effect on apo (a), except for niacin, a vitamin. Lysine along with vitamin C facilitate proper healing and repair initial crack in the artery and causes the plaque to shrink. If a local vitamin C deficiency caused the arterial crack, it appears obvious that increased vitamin C intake might prevent the deficiency initiating the crack and, also, decrease the apo (a) that creates the plaque. Hence, Linus Pauling's approach to curing heart disease makes sense-another one of the important facts about vitamins. Bolstering Dr. Linus Pauling's position is a new book by Dr. Thomas Levy. "Dr. Levy is a medical doctor and a cardiologist by training. Some time ago, Dr. Levy analyzed all 27 known cardiovascular disease risk factors. Levy discovered that they all can be reduced to a single factor- low vitamin C."-another one of the critical facts about vitamins. From a children's nutrition perspective, it appears obvious that the pharmaceutical corporations chose to purposely attack the credibility of those supporting vitamin C and the research upholding their support, and hid the knowledge of vitamin C's effectiveness against heart disease to prevent the tremendous financial loss they would have experienced had it become widely known to the American public. One wonders how many children have died because pharmaceutical companies chose to hide the facts about vitamins to protect their very profitable patented drugs from competition? From a children's nutrition point of view, it is important to validate these findings of apparent wrong doing by the corporate pharmaceutical industry, in regard to vitamin C, by checking for other supporting evidence outside of the vitamin C realm. In other words, if there proves to be evidence of widespread wrong doing by Big Pharma, in general, this would support contentions that Big Pharma acted inappropriately in regard to vitamin C and support the allegation that they chose to hide the facts about vitamins to protect their profits. Marcia Angell, a faculty member of the Harvard Medical School and a former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, in her book, The Truth About the Drug Companies, discusses the following ways drug companies deceive Americans:
prevent the facts about vitamins from reaching the American public. If Big Pharma's hiding the facts about vitamins isn't enough, read this:
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