Why Do People Think Vitamins, Supplements, Etc. Are Dangerous?
Zero deaths caused by vitamins, minerals, amino acids or herbs
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) To hear opponents of natural medicine say it, vitamins and herbs are extremely dangerous for your health. They should be regulated, we’re told, because they’re so dangerous!
Statistics from the U.S. National Poison Data System prove otherwise. According to a 174-page report just published, the number of people killed in 2009 across America by vitamins, minerals, amino acids or herbal supplements is exactly zero.
Compare that to the 100,000 (or so) Americans killed each year by FDA-approved pharmaceuticals — and that’s even according to studies published in JAMA. Also consider the thousands of women harmed or killed by medically-unjustified cancer treatments following false positives from faulty mammograms. And don’t forget about the more than 16,500 Americans killed each year from internal bleeding caused by NSAIDs (over-the-counter painkillers).
As the July 1998 issue of The American Journal of Medicine explains:
“Conservative calculations estimate that approximately 107,000 patients are hospitalized annually for nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID)-related gastrointestinal (GI) complications and at least 16,500 NSAID-related deaths occur each year among arthritis patients alone.” (Singh Gurkirpal, MD, “Recent Considerations in Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drug Gastropathy”, The American Journal of Medicine, July 27, 1998, p. 31S)
So if NSAIDs alone are killing 16,500 people a year (or likely much more now, as use of these drugs has risen significantly since 1998), and nutritional supplements are killing zero people a year, why do health regulators try to scare everybody about vitamins being so “dangerous?”
Pharmaceuticals, meanwhile, are openly allowed to be prescribed for off-label use, meaning that doctors can prescribe them for diseases and health conditions for which they’ve never even been tested!
What’s wrong with this picture? It’s clearly a war against nutrition — a war against natural medicine — being waged by the health regulators of the world who are conspiring with Big Pharma to keep the people trapped in a state of malnutrition (all while profiting from their disease by selling them more patented pharmaceuticals).
The Orthomolecular Medicine News Service published a full article on this issue. Here’s what they had to say about the safety of nutritional supplements and the misguided attempts by world governments to limit or outlaw many supplements.
No Deaths from Vitamins, Minerals, Amino Acids or Herbs
Poison Control Statistics Prove Supplements’ Safety
There was not even one death caused by a dietary supplement in 2008, according to the most recent information collected by the U.S. National Poison Data System. The new 174-page annual report of the American Association of Poison Control Centers, published in the journal Clinical Toxicology, shows zero deaths from multiple vitamins; zero deaths from any of the B vitamins; zero deaths from vitamins A, C, D, or E; and zero deaths from any other vitamin.
Additionally, there were no deaths whatsoever from any amino acid or herbal product. This means no deaths at all from blue cohosh, echinacea, ginkgo biloba, ginseng, kava kava, St. John’s wort, valerian, yohimbe, Asian medicines, ayurvedic medicines, or any other botanical. There were zero deaths from creatine, blue-green algae, glucosamine, chondroitin, melatonin, or any homeopathic remedies.
Furthermore, there were zero deaths in 2008 from any dietary mineral supplement. This means there were no fatalities from calcium, magnesium, chromium, zinc, colloidal silver, selenium, iron, or multimineral supplements. Two children died as a result of medical use of the antacid sodium bicarbonate. The other “Electrolyte and Mineral” category death was due to a man accidentally drinking sodium hydroxide, a highly toxic degreaser and drain-opener.
No man, woman or child died from nutritional supplements. Period.
61 poison centers provide coast-to-coast data for the U.S. National Poison Data System, which is then reviewed by 29 medical and clinical toxicologists. NPDS, the authors write, is “one of the few real-time national surveillance systems in existence, providing a model public health surveillance system for all types of exposures, public health event identification, resilience response and situational awareness tracking.”
Over half of the U.S. population takes daily nutritional supplements. Even if each of those people took only one single tablet daily, that makes 154,000,000 individual doses per day, for a total of over 56 billion doses annually. Since many persons take more than just one vitamin or mineral tablet, actual consumption is considerably higher, and the safety of nutritional supplements is all the more remarkable.
If nutritional supplements are allegedly so “dangerous,” as the FDA and news medi
in the alternative section of yahoo answers, you’ll only find those who keep trying to disprove what others believe in. if it works for you, then don’t let anyone tell you something different. scientific facts are dynamic, what is a fact today can become a myth tomorrow w/ more valid studies.
they say vitamins are dangerous to our health, well the people pushing this agenda are those who support the control of vitamins and minerals. look up monsanto, they’re quite e v i l .
It’s rare that wiki is able to so easily point out the stupidity displayed on this forum. In the past, I’ve often had to use pubmed to find pieces refuting the trash I read in alternative medicine. This time all I had to due was type hypervitaminosis into the google search bar:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitamin_poi…
Vitamins can indeed cause death, and there are several well documented cases. We need vitamins in trace amounts. If we exceed these amounts by such a level that our bodies’ cannot deal with the excess, then toxicity ensues. This can lead to death.
But since you’re so sure, do me a favor and take megadoses of vitamin A for the next few weeks. Make sure you keep me updated from your hospital bed when the doctors are treating you for a nonexistent case of vitamin toxicity.
People fall victims of propaganda, hype, and long lists of initials after somebody’s name: we are blinded by “science”, “evidence-based medicine” and other soundbites, aimed at convincing the general populace of the validity of research into drugs. People believe “experts”.
But as my dad used to say an “expert” is just a drip under pressure…
they just want to discredit the competition and buy them out to have all the profits for themselves. nobody pays attention to them because we are all waking up to all the dangers, deaths and conspiracies of big pharma and the medical industry. thats why there are so many trolls on here trashing alt med – they are paid to do this! how else would doctors and nurses be able to answer questions ALL DAY unless it was their job? no nurse or doctor i know has all that spare time!
Who thinks that?
My objection to vitamins and minerals isn’t because of “danger”, just because for 95% of people they are uneccesary, useless and a waste of money.
You seem to have asked this question for the sole purpose of creating a “medicine kills people” strawman to knock down. THere is a current article on Science Based Medicine, which is heavily referenced which deals with those common myths. I know YOU won’t read it, but others who are curious about your claims may want to.http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=3…
FYI…Mike Adams in particular, and Natural News and Orthomolecular News are not reliable sources of information. You could have a journal called Leprachaun News for that matter with as much credibility.
Vitamins aren’t necessarily dangerous, the problem is that there is no routine indication for them. A recent study showed that taking some vitamin supplements ABOVE the RDA may increase mortality.
Basically, the evidence concluded that there is “no evidence to support antioxidant supplements for primary or secondary prevention (of mortality)”
The study also showed that vitamins A, E + beta-carotene MAY increase risk of mortality. http://www.mrw.interscience.wiley.com/co…
We say, why do you feel you need to take them if you are eating a healthy balanced diet? And if you aren’t eating a healthy balanced diet, why aren’t you?
Science does not support the need for routine vitamin supplementation. If taking it makes you “feel” better and makes you “feel” like you are doing something positive towards your health, then that’s up to you, but don’t try and convince everyone else that there is a “need” to take routine supplements. -There is no convincing evidence to support this hypothesis.
Ask yourself WHY you feel the need to take these vitamins? What are you basing this on?
EDIT
One of the alties said, ” they are paid to do this! how else would doctors and nurses be able to answer questions ALL DAY unless it was their job? no nurse or doctor i know has all that spare time!”
Enough with your hysterical conspiracy theories. Believe it or not, Doctors and Nurses (like everyone else) do use the Internet, as shocking as that may sound. I typically answer no more than about 10 questions a day, usually less. Takes up less than 20 minutes of my time. So no…you’re going to have to find a new theory, “Big Pharma” are not paying us to be here.
Are “Big Herba” paying you to be here?
EDIT
Jello: OK…one more time…we aren’t necessarily saying RDA dose vitamin supplements are dangerous. We are simply saying there is just no need to take them if you are eating a healthy diet.
You people have got to learn critical thinking. You interpret weird things from our answers.
If you believe we work for “big Pharma” then surely we’d be encouraging you to take vitamins supplements as most vitamin companies are a subdivision of “big pharma” !
It’s almost like they sit there going through the list of logical fallacys.