To: IAHF List
Subject: NAS Says Vitamin A is "Dangerous" They're Creating Phony Safety Standards - Here is Why & How it Dovetails With Codex
From: "International Advocates for Health Freedom" jham@iahf.com
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 23:33:05 -0500
IAHF List:
[See Bill Sardi's commentary below on the National Academy of Sciences assertion that Vitamin A is "dangerous."]
The only legal way a country can refuse to harmonize its vitamin laws to the grossly restrictive Codex vitamin standard currently under "development" is on a basis of SAFETY. So.... how are we being set up? Simple. The pharmaceutically funded National Academy of Science is hard at work fabricating phony safety standards for dietary supplements, such as in their report condemning high potency Vitamin A. (see below), and via their paper "A Risk Assessment Model for Establishing Safe Upper Levels for Nutrients" (see http://www.iahf.com NAS Paper, and Rebuttal.)
The following members of the Council for Responsible Nutrition FUNDED NAS to generate both phony papers:Roche,Daiichi,Kemin and Weider. These companies are either wittingly or unwittingly helping to set the USA up to lose in a trade dispute. There is no way to know what their Board of Directors are thinking, except that they will do whatever they think is best for their shareholders, and in this sort of decisionmaking, public health and moral considerations give way to purely financial ones.
Also, the FDA has just given NAS $1 Million to fabricate a "safety study" on dietary supplement ingredients, to be completed by 2002. The USA is being set up to lose in a trade dispute regarding the Codex vitamin issue, because our only legal "out" for not harmonizing our laws to a finished Codex standard is safety, so by creating phony safety standards FDA and NAS are setting us up so we can't win. NAS is not subject to FOIA, so there is no way to assess the raw data behind papers such as this, or the CV's of their authors for the sake of examining conflict of interest.
A Congressional Oversight Hearing on the Codex Vitamin Issue has been blocked since 1996 by pharmaceutical interests dominating the Council for Responsible Nutrition, and which are controlling the National Nutritional Foods Assn via its International Committee. IAHF knows this due to our efforts to get Oversight on this issue since '96.
The NAS paper was funded by Roche Vitamins Inc., Mead Johnson Nutrition Group, Daiichi Fine Chemicals Inc., Kemin Foods, M&M Mars, Weider Nutrition Group, and Natural Source Vitamin E Association.
Of these Roche, Daiichi, Kemin and Weider belong to CRN. Meanwhile, the Chair of NNFA's International Committee who endorses this biased, unscientific, pharmaceutically funded "set up" paper is and employee of Warner Lambert which is a member of both CRN and NNFA. Warner Lambert was bought by Pfizer. Congress needs to closely examine this set up.
The biased Vitamin A study was funded by Roche Vitamins Inc., Mead Johnson Nutrition Group, Nabisco Foods Group, U.S. Borax, Daiichi Fine Chemicals Inc., Kemin Foods Inc., M&M/Mars,Weider Nutrition Group, and the Natural Source Vitamin E Association. source: http://www4.nationalacademies.org/news.nsf/(ByDocID)/9B84D1026CEDD5FC852569CF0052DC06?OpenDocument Of these Roche,Daiichi,Kemin and Weider are members of CRN.
Best selling health author Gary Null will be assisting IAHF in getting signatures on petitions calling for Oversight on the Codex Vitamin Issue. Null will soon kick the national petition drive off via a book signing tour of health food stores nationwide, and via an online petition on his website, which will be mirrored at http://www.iahf.com Null and IAHF just teamed up to produce 4 powerful radio shows on the Codex vitamin issue, and will be doing more in the days to come. Some audio clips from these shows can be heard in the media section of http://www.iahf.com and more will be posted soon. IAHF urges members of NNFA to take a close look at how we are being set up.
IAHF urges NNFA member companies to take a serious look at how NNFA's position supporting the NAS paper is designed to cause us to lose in a trade dispute. Questions must be raised by NNFA member companies about conflict of interest within the trade association.
Bill Sardi
Knowledge of Health, Inc.
Preface: Here it is folks. The National Academy of Sciences scaring people away from vitamins, again. In the USA maybe 50-60 people a year develop vitamin A toxicity in the liver, but this largely occurs to people with liver disease. Furthermore, the condition is reversible. Nothing is said of the many millions who are vitamin A deficient and have diminished night vision. No case of death from vitamin A overdose has ever been reported, save for one guy who shot a bear in Canada and ate its liver and died because bear liver provides 1 million units of vitamin A. According to the NAS, 10,000 units of vitamin A is dangerous ---- what? That's the amount provided in a carrot!!! Toxic carrots??? Look, beta carotene found in carrots converts to vitamin A in the liver, and excesses are stored in the skin. You can't overdose on beta carotene. It's possible, but not likely, you could get too much formed vitamin A (vitamin A palmitate on your vitamin bottle), if you eat some beef liver every day, but again, some people have weak livers and need vitamin A already formed. Why not ban beef liver? People who are fighting infections need more vitamin A. Notice that the NAS is setting upper limits for vitamins for the first time.
Report:
January 10, 2001
By LAURAN NEERGAARD
AP Medical Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) via NewsEdge Corporation - Don't pop too many vitamin A supplements, because large amounts, particularly megadoses available from health-food stores, can be dangerous, the government says in guidelines that update how much of certain nutrients Americans should consume for good health.
Men need 900 micrograms of vitamin A a day and women 700, says Tuesday's report by the Institute of Medicine, which slightly lowers the ``recommended daily allowance,'' or RDA, of the nutrient.
Never eat more than 3,000 micrograms a day, because such high levels can cause severe liver disease and, in pregnant women, birth defects, the panel concluded.
Vitamin A is crucial for good vision, immune function and other bodily functions. In poor countries, vitamin A deficiency is a huge problem that blinds thousands.
Here, vitamin A deficiency is very rare, because Americans have so many foods chock full of the nutrient: meat, fish, eggs, vitamin-fortified breakfast cereals, and dark-colored fruits and vegetables like oranges, carrots and spinach.
It's easy for most Americans to get enough through diet alone, said Tufts University nutrition professor Robert Russell, who chaired the Institute of Medicine panel.
Vegetarians, however, may need to eat more dark-colored fruits and vegetables, because new research shows those foods actually yield half as much vitamin A as previously thought.
"We're not talking about eating mammoth amounts," Russell said. Half a cup of cooked carrots is enough. Cooking doubles the body's absorption of vitamin A, so people who prefer raw veggies need more.
But vitamin supplements - even a regular multivitamin that contains three times the RDA - can push people over safe levels, the report cautioned. Of most concern are megadoses sold in health food stores, often measured in confusing "international units." Know that 10,000 international units is the same as 3,000 micrograms, a dangerous amount, Russell warned.
The institute is part of the National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit organization that advises the federal government and has set the nation's RDAs for nutrients since 1941.
Other nutrient levels released Tuesday:
Men and post-menopausal women need 8 milligrams a day of iron, vital to prevent anemia. Because iron is lost through bleeding, premenopausal women need 18 milligrams daily. [Report conflicts with statements below.]
Iron is found in many foods, especially meat. But pregnant women need an extra 27 milligrams daily for fetal growth, and thus require iron in prenatal vitamins. [It's iron that causes stillbirths, promotes infection, and causes the nausea during pregnancy as women take pre-natal vitamins. Yes, some supplemental iron during pregnancy. 27 milligrams is a whopper dose!! Maybe too much.]
More than 45 milligrams a day will cause stomach upset. Also, men should not take iron supplements, the institute said. There's no benefit; some research suggests too much iron increases the risk of heart disease; and some people harbor a gene that makes their bodies dangerously overload iron. [They got this one right. Now what is going to be done with all those Centrum, One-a-Day, Theragram vitamins in stores that dangerously overload men with iron?]
_The RDA for zinc is 11 milligrams for men, 8 milligrams for women, a little lower than before because scientists have found the body stores zinc better than once thought. About 10 percent of Americans don't eat that much, a particular problem for children because zinc deficiency can stunt growth. [Yes, but zinc from the diet is poorly absorbed. Almost every American was short on zinc, so they just lowered the standard so it looks like everybody gets enough. Modern man is exposed to more aluminum (soft drink cans, antiperspirants) which competes with zinc in brain tissues. Aluminum is toxic in the brain, zinc is not.]
_The upper limit is 40 milligrams a day. That much can block the body's absorption of another vital nutrient, copper. As for those zinc supplements popular to fight colds, there's not yet proof they really work and the doses could exceed the upper limit, IOM cautioned.
_Chromium, widespread through the food supply, may stimulate insulin, a hormone important for converting blood sugar into energy. Consequently, chromium supplements have become popular among people worried about diabetes. But the IOM called chromium supplement studies inconclusive and couldn't set an RDA or a safe upper limit because so little is known about the nutrient. Americans today eat 25 to 35 micrograms daily.
_Men need 120 micrograms of vitamin K daily, 90 for women. Found in green leafy vegetables and certain oils, it's essential for blood clotting. [Yes, but the doctors have scared every person with blood clotting problems away from vitamin K and placed them on blood thinners, which require monthly testing for toxicity.]
_Copper's new RDA is 900 micrograms; the upper limit is 10 milligrams daily, which can cause liver damage. Copper is found in organ meats, seafood and nuts.
_Eat 150 micrograms a day of iodine but never more than 1.1 milligrams a day. Found mostly in iodized salt but also some seafood and grains, it's important for proper thyroid gland function.
On the Net: http://www.nas.edu