Why is the Media Telling Us That Vitamins Are Useless?
Power. Power and money. That’s what it comes down to!
Antioxidants, bad science and failure of the press to tell the truth
“Following yesterday’s announcement of a new study showing the phenomenal benefits of antioxidants for preventing heart disease in women, the mainstream media rallied behind a blatantly false distortion of the study designed to convince the public that vitamins E and C are somehow useless. The popular press, which maintains an incestuous relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, once again demonstrates it is little more than a mouthpiece for the pro-pharma propaganda machine. There is no scrutiny of the study’s findings, no critical thinking and absolutely no independent journalism being conducted by the mainstream media on this particular topic. It’s as if these media outlets just can’t wait to be spoon-fed the latest propaganda from drug company collaborators and then parrot it out to the public as fact. The distortion in question concerns the assessment of women who participated in a nine year trial measuring the effects of vitamins E and C. According to the results published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, women who took these vitamins on a regular basis experienced a remarkable and statistically significant reduction in stroke risk (31 percent) and heart attack risk (22 percent). Not all the women in the study, of course, actually took the vitamins on a regular basis, and when you count the results of those women who never took the vitamins, the study shows no statistically significant benefits for vitamins E and C. In other words, the vitamins didn’t work on those who didn’t take them. (Is this surprising to anyone?) The mainstream media has taken hold of this statistical distortion and declared that antioxidants are now useless for preventing heart disease. Utterly ignoring the fact that the vitamins worked remarkably well in those who actually took them, the media now seems to be on a crusade to discredit nutritional supplements by lying to its readers. Having abandoned all common sense or scientific scrutiny, the media is now engaged in an organized campaign of disinformation designed to boost the profits of their largest advertisers — the drug companies — by spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt about nutritional supplements.”