Consumer Reports: Dangerous Reporting
by Neil E. Levin, Certified Clinical Nutritionist
June 16, 2004

The May 2004 issue of Consumer Reports contains an article sharply critical of dietary supplements, called "Dangerous Supplements-Still At Large". Unfortunately for consumers, Consumer Reports has once again failed to deliver fair and accurate facts when reporting on natural products. I believe that a bias is present in the experts selected by the magazine as their trusted sources for these types of stories. In some cases the supplements' safety record as found in peer-reviewed, published science is far from what I am reading in the magazine's report. Not that Consumer Reports is alone in this medical/media bias against supplements.

It is clear that many medical and regulatory officials do not understand or respect dietary supplements. They do not believe that they are regulated properly, even when the FDA claims otherwise. And nothing should be allowed to interfere with the ever-expanding drugging of America.

Where there is a conflict between a food and a drug, or an herb and a drug, the doctors assume that the drug is automatically blameless and necessary; but the supplement or food needs to be restricted, labeled or banned for daring to interfere with their medical treatments.

If another country bans a supplement, that is presented as evidence of its harm, and that ban used to criticize our government for not cracking down on supplements here. Of course, that argument does not apply to foreign refusal to accept our exports of genetically modified food due to an absence of safety data. In that case their refusal to carry what we have approved in the USA is not respected. Experts use the foreign ban argument both ways, even though it is obviously contradictory. Which proves that the argument is phony. Why should new types of food be automatically exempt from most safety regulations while dietary supplements (the category of food with the fewest safety problems on record) can get banned over media hysteria, despite having almost no hard evidence against them?

In the case of the herb ephedra, the mainstream dietary supplement manufacturers had begged the FDA to institute mandatory label and dose restrictions for many months before the ban was announced, promising to support the changes. But there was no 'smoking gun' proving serious harm that could provoke FDA action.

Ephedra was finally banned, the ban prompted by the novel new theory that because supplements' safety is assumed rather than proven, that the government needs only a reasonable suspicion of human harm to take action, rather than actual evidence of human harm: "...historical use is not always enough by itself to prove the safety of a supplement even if it has been consumed for centuries or used in folk medicine..." Only the gigantic amount of pressure in the media from misguided consumer advocates led the government to overrule the FDA and institute a ban based on fear.

More regulation is proposed to institute controls over dietary supplements that are stricter even than the requirements for over-the-counter drugs. But OTC drugs kill many thousands of people a year. Dietary supplements are accused by their foes of killing maybe 150 a year, but the actual death statistics list only a handful of probable deaths: typically zero from vitamins, a few from iron supplements, and maybe 5 a year from all plant poisonings. Why - other than ignorance and fear - would anyone recommend to regulate and maybe ban supplements based on purely theoretical dangers, when the same kind of evidence would be legally inadmissible against OTC drugs that are already proven to be thousands of times more deadly, despite having gone through the required safety testing?

The "adverse reports" that the FDA received about ephedra would not be allowed to be used as evidence of harm for any drug. Yet they are 'Exhibit A' against ephedra. The Rand Corp. review of studies on ephedra noted the anecdotal reports, but also noted that they were not valid evidence and that they were contradicted by the over 50 well-designed studies that were also reviewed. In all of those studies, there was a total of zero cases of deaths, strokes, or heart attacks in any of the people using ephedra. This has been confirmed by science at Harvard and by the Hemmorrhagic Stroke Study, neither of which reported any serious adverse effects from ephedra. Yet politicians and medical experts repeatedly cite the unproven reports as evidence of danger, while ignoring the century-long trail of legitimate science proving otherwise. And Rand reported safe, steady weight loss in these ephedra studies.

Ephedra was combined with caffeine and other substances in products that do cause temporary, reversible side effects for some people. Yet caffeine is rarely blamed for these side effects, and it is proposed to exclude caffeine from this new regulation of stimulants, even though caffeine is a very strong blood vessel constrictor which can cause increased blood pressure and headaches.

Another herb is slammed in the article for being too similar to ephedra. It is bitter orange (citrus aurantium), which actually does NOT have a similar action to ephedra, contrary to what the article states. It does not have the same central nervous system effects and does not tend to constrict blood vessels and raise blood pressure, in contrast to what Consumer Reports claims. Bitter orange has totally different alkaloids than ephedra, with different effects. In one study bitter orange also helped regulate irregular heartbeat, contradicting the article once again. But the attack machine will keep fighting this herb until the insurance companies withdraw support, and the prices will rise as it becomes uninsurable. Which is what is already happening to kava.

The Polynesian herb kava kava is accused in the article of probably causing liver disease. There is virtually no proof of this. A noted toxicologist looked at the evidence and pronounced it to be only a few unrelated cases, with no real link between the liver damage and kava use. Meanwhile acetaminophen (Tylenol and other brands) is blamed for thousands of deaths a year, and is the number one cause of liver failure noted by hospitals (in England so many people were dying of this drug that it was forced into being sold only as blister packs in small-count boxes). But kava suppliers are finding it harder and harder to get liability insurance, because of the media scares. Some countries have already banned kava, despite an almost total lack of evidence that it causes even as much harm as a cup of coffee.

Again, a foreign ban is proof of harm - unless they ban something we export, in which case it's an unfair trade practice.

The supplement andro (androstene) is also being accused of bad side effects.  Certain sports groups have banned it as a performance enhancer, which is cited as evidence of it's being harmful. (Huh?)

The bottom line is that, by design or by ignorance, dietary supplements are being persecuted despite their lack of any real deadly potential. Medical and pharmaceutical interests are pushing politicians and consumer groups to clamp down on products that are safer than the food we eat. Food allergies kill hundreds of people a year; food poisoning thousands. Less than a handful of deaths are really scientifically and medically linked to supplements, and they are so far below the statistical measurement standards as to be virtually zero. Even the FDA has admitted as much: that the deaths blamed on ephedra were so few as to be below their ability to distinguish from other random, unexplained causes of death in any large population.

And finally, Consumer Reports tells us to avoid taking more than the so-called Safe Upper Limits for vitamins. These SULs are not a gold standard, being sometimes arbitrarily set even in the absence of any medical records proving that higher levels have harmed anyone. With no problems on record from taking a vitamin, the NAS still allowed SULs to be set by adding 20% to the estimated daily average intake; with no proof that our intake was adequate or overabundant.

This is regulation for regulation's sake! This is medical bias against dietary supplements! I, for one, am sick not from my daily supplements, but from the unbelievable gall of those who think that I will believe them when they tell me that safe things are dangerous, that they can set limits on my diet based solely on their unproven theories, and that the government is always my unbiased friend and protector.

I welcome reasonable government regulation based on science, not on this load of bullfeathers that is intended to scare us into compliance. The FDA has repeatedly said that it has the tools to regulate supplements and protect the public. Why don't the politicians believe them?