December 15, 2017 general

It seems that the government and big medicine have exactly an upside-down approach to dietary supplements. For the most part, they just warn us about any potential harm that they can dream up. These influence leaders should be telling us that supplements might save our lives. Studies of benefit are abundant, but ignored. There is a built-in prejudice, a belief that normal health requires medication. Drug company staff and paid consultants who come and go through government and academia reinforce that concept.

For years, the nonprofit Vitamin D Council has monitored the science and informed us that higher blood levels of D (50-100 nmol/L) were of benefit for immune function, muscles, heart function, lungs, brain, depression, breast cancer protection and so on. However, the government has said that abysmal blood levels as low as 20 was good enough. They also steadfastly warned about getting more than small supplemental doses (e.g. 800 IU) acted as though the D2 added to milk was as good as the D3 used in pills. The FDA recommendations for daily intake were supposedly based on science. Really?

At first, I was excited when Bill Sardi sent me a journal article entitled The Big Vitamin D Mistake. The article reported that “a statistical error in the estimation of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) for vitamin D was recently discovered.” It went on to say, “The largest meta-analysis ever conducted of studies published between 1966 and 2013 showed that 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels <75 nmol/L [below 75] may be too low for safety and [are] associated with higher all-cause mortality.” Deficiency is killing us! These scientists recommended that the RDA for adults be amended to 8,000 IU daily. Children age 3 and older should be given 3,000. Their recommendation for children over age 1 drinking enriched formula is 1,000 IU and for breastfed children older than 6 months, 1, 500 IU.

As noted, initially I was excited to get this improved information. Then I became angry. This article was published in July (5 months ago) and the error was discovered even before that! This is big news! Even generously assuming the error was just incompetence rather than mischief, why haven’t we heard about this from the FDA, AMA and media? Were they all just too busy browbeating us to get flu shots?

Are they as wrong about the vaccine as they were about vitamin D? As it turns out, the flu vaccination this year is about 10% effective! In contrast to the party line that especially seniors and children should get them because they are more likely to suffer more, the vaccine is less effective in seniors and infants because their immune systems are not capable of as hearty a response.  Wait a minute. Ten percent? Wouldn’t 10 out of a hundred people resist the flu even without shots? Because of the multiple toxic substances they contain (mercury, formaldehyde, antibiotics, aluminum, etc.) I just don’t believe that these injections should be taking willy nilly…but, that is a discussion for another day.