No
Deaths From Vitamins, Herbs or Supplements
Despite
what US News reports, read this article published
1/19/10
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Orthomolecular Medicine News Service,
January 19, 2010 No Deaths from Vitamins, Minerals, Amino Acids or
Herbs Poison Control Statistics Prove Supplements' Safety (OMNS,
January 19, 2010) 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 media so often claim, then
where are the bodies? Those who wonder if the media are biased
against vitamins may consider this: how many television stations,
newspapers, magazines, and medical journals have reported that no
one dies from nutritional supplements? Reference: Bronstein AC,
Spyker DA, Cantilena LR Jr, Green JL, Rumack BH, Giffin SL. 2008
Annual Report of the American Association of Poison Control
Centers' National Poison Data System (NPDS): 26th Annual Report.
Clinical Toxicology (2009). 47, 911-1084. The full text article is
available for free download at
http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/Portals/0/2008annualreport.pdf . Vitamins
statistics are found in Table 22B, journal pages 1052-3. Minerals,
herbs, amino acids and other supplements are in the same table,
pages 1047-8. For Further Reading: Download any Annual Report of
the American Association of Poison Control Centers from 1983-2008
free of charge at
http://www.aapcc.org/dnn/NPDSPoisonData/AnnualReports/tabid/125/Default.aspx
Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine Orthomolecular
medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness.
For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org The
peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit
and non-commercial informational resource. Editorial Review Board:
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. Damien Downing, M.D. Michael Gonzalez,
D.Sc., Ph.D. Steve Hickey, Ph.D. James A. Jackson, PhD Bo H.
Jonsson, MD, Ph.D Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. Jorge R. Miranda-Massari,
Pharm.D. Erik Paterson, M.D. Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D. Andrew W.
Saul, Ph.D., Editor and contact person. Email:
omns@orthomolecular.org To Subscribe at no charge:
http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html Click here to
Unsubscribe from this list
No Deaths from Vitamins,
Minerals, Amino Acids or Herbs |