DSIB Blog

Pharmaceutical Advertising Skews Supplement Coverage?

A recent study from the Wake Forest University School of Medicine has found that increased pharmaceutical advertising in medical journals is associated with publishing fewer articles about dietary supplements and publishing more articles with conclusions that dietary supplements are unsafe.

This study analyzed 11 major medical journals published from June 30, 2006 and June 30, 2007. Findings included:

• The percentage of articles concluding that dietary supplements were ineffective was 50% higher among journals with more pharmaceutical ads than among those with fewer pharmaceutical ads
• The percentage of major articles concluding that dietary supplements were unsafe was 4% in journals with fewest and 67% among those with the most pharmaceutical ads.

These findings, along with other study findings, including that journals with the most pharmaceutical ads published significantly fewer major articles about dietary supplements, seem to indicate a significant bias against dietary supplements in journals supported by pharmaceutical advertising.

Read the complete study here: http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pubmed&pubmedid=18400092.

Please share your thoughts on this important issue by commenting here.

Do We Really Need Placebos for Children?

A new product, a placebo ‘pill’ for children, has just hit the market, with controversy following right behind.

The ‘pill’, a cherry-flavored dextrose tablet, is meant to be given to children who think they need medicine, but don’t. It’s called ‘Obecalp’, which is placebo spelled backward. The inventor says the tablets are made to have the taste and feel of real medicine so parents can give children a placebo when they complain of minor ills and reduce the use of unnecessary drugs.

Experts are speaking up on both sides of the issue. Some say that it’s a harmless way to get children to ‘think’ themselves well. Others say that anything that encourages the use of unnecessary ‘medicine’, even imitation ‘medicine’, is inappropriate for children. Some say that this builds a mental dependence on drugs that could lead to drug dependence throughout life. They say that children should learn that many ills don’t require treatment – that minor discomfort can be handled successfully without drugs. Others say that what children with minor ills really need is comfort from parents, not a quick dose of a fake ‘medicine’.

Read more about this issue here and add your comment here to let us know what you think.

Top Economists List Vitamins for Children as World's Top Priority

The Copenhagen Consensus Conference, a gathering of some of the world’s top economists, ranked supplying millions of malnourished children with vitamin A and zinc the number one world priority, beating out issues related to global warming, terrorism, AIDS and others.

It was estimated that supplying the world’s 140 million undernourished children with vitamin A and zinc would cost just $60 million, but would create benefits of $1 billion through better health, fewer deaths and increased future earnings.

The Copenhagen Consensus Conference, which meets every fourth year, is a gathering of 55 of the world’s top economists and specialists in the ten key challenges. A roundtable analysis of the issues is followed by a ranking of these issues by priority. The list is designed “to be an eye-opener for policy-makers all over the world, and to act as a vehicle for improving decision-making on spending on global issues.”

Read more about this conference here.

For more information on these important vitamins, see DSIB information on vitamin A and zinc.

Dedicated to the Drugging of our Children?

By James J. Gormley

On July 7, 2008, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) Committee on Nutrition issued new cholesterol screening and prescription treatment guidelines for children.

The AAP’s policy statement recommends cholesterol screening of children with a family history of high cholesterol or heart disease in children as young as toddlers just over two years of age and the prescribing of cholesterol (statin) drugs for children just over age eight. The group also wants our growing kids to drink lowfat milk.

What a sad day this is for America’s children.

But before I address the AAP, whose motto is “Dedicated to the health of all children,” let’s take a brief look at these drugs.

Statin drugs—examples of which include Zocor, Mevacor and Lipitor—are avidly prescribed and dispensed to tens of millions of people worldwide. Nevertheless, according to an August 28th, 2007, article in the Washington Post, experts say that muscle pain and other side effects occur in up to 30 percent of statin patients.

Possible side effects, which for some people can even be disabling, can include: Lou Gehrig’s disease (also called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), liver and kidney problems, muscle aching or weakness, numbness in hands and feet, memory loss, dark or cola-colored urine, among other serious problems.

According to Sara Parker Pope in the New York Times, “there is no evidence to show whether giving statins to a child will lower the risk for heart attack in middle age.” Furthermore, the guidelines offer no guidance on how long a child should stay on these drugs. In fact, children taking these drugs could wind up being on these pharmaceuticals for the rest of their lives.

As to the AAP, in response to a reporter’s question regarding the fact that there are no long-term data on statin use in children, a member of the academy’s nutrition committee was quoted in the July 8th New York Times as saying: “We extrapolate from the information we have in adults.”

That statement brazenly flies in the very face of the academy’s founding principles.

According to the AAP, the organization was founded in 1930 by 35 pediatricians who were committed to transforming medicine in order to recognize that children have special developmental and health needs; that children should never again be treated as miniature adults.

In terms of the guidelines, the July 2004 National Cholesterol Education Program’s (NCEP) recommendations on statins and cholesterol lowering, upon which the academy’s guidelines are partly based, was headed up a panel of nine authors, eight of whom had financial ties to statin makers.

Today, most specialty medical societies receive a large part of their funding from drug companies; in fact, “approximately 70% of physicians’ continuing medical education is now paid for by the drug” companies, according to Drs. Abramson and Starfield in a 2005 paper in the Journal of the American Board of Family Practice.

Could pharmaceutical influence, either indirectly through the NCEP recommendations or directly on the AAP, be a factor here?

We already know that the influence of agribusiness and food and beverage giants on our society, and our children, is without question.

For example, when the AAP developed these guidelines, did it consider the following facts uncovered by researchers from the University of North Carolina: between 1997 and 2001 alone, overall calories from sweetened drinks went up 135%; Americans drank approximately 40% fewer calories from milk and milk consumption in kids dropped from 13.2% of total calories to 8.3%; and soda consumption doubled in children.

Doesn’t the academy know that, according to the Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, “school food programs compete against the widely available and aggressively advertised fast food, soft drink and snack foods that fill vending machines, school stores and a la carte cafeteria lines.”

Most assuredly the AAP is aware that U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) corn subsidies encourage the big soda makers to use high-fructose corn syrup in its drinks.

So where is the academy on all this?

Is the AAP issuing stern guidelines calling on a complete scrapping of the national school lunch program? Is it calling on schools around the country to ban soda and junk food from the schools? Is it taking on the soda and junk food companies who advertise to, and prey on, our children?

I think not.

While, in fairness, the AAP did urge that good diets and exercise be tried first, the magic bullet approach to the overweight and unhealthy of America’s children may, tragically, be an attractive one to the academy’s 60,000 members and to many parents.

On July 10th, the New York Times editorial board wrote: “We do fear that [this recommendation] will open the way for drug companies to bombard anxious parents with ads promoting these and other products and increase the number of parents insisting on prescriptions for their children.”

The editorial writers added: “The ease of popping pills should not distract parents, health professionals or policy makers from the more arduous tasks of cutting back on junk foods, promoting healthy diets and putting physical education back into the schools.” Well said.

If there is any possible good that has arisen from all this it may be this: now parents have a new “litmus test” with which to choose pediatricians.

Parents should now ask pediatricians if they are in favor of the new AAP cholesterol screening and drug treatment guidelines. If a pediatrician says that he or she is in favor of the drugging guidelines, parents will know, with certainty, that they do not want this pediatrician caring for their children.

If parents around the country were to use pediatrician adoption of these guidelines to choose, or keep, pediatricians, perhaps the message will get through to the academy.

Furthermore, if many of the 60,000 members of the academy were to call for this guideline to be immediately corrected and to refuse to implement the drug treatment recommendations, perhaps that message might get through too.

Until this happens, however, we must ask the academy to change its motto to: “Dedicated to the drugging of our children,” as the AAP’s existing motto can no longer, in good conscience, be used.

An award-winning journalist, published author, and member of the prestigious American Society of Journalists and Authors (ASJA), Gormley has 20 years of experience in health-related media communications. He is a senior policy advisor for Citizens for Health (www.citizens.org), an advisory board member of the National Health Research Institute (NHRI) and a member of the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT). From 2006 to 2008, Gormley directed three leading health-food trade magazines for VRM Inc. He is perhaps best known for having served as the longtime editor-in-chief of Better Nutrition magazine (1995 to 2002) and for having founded Remedies magazine in 2006. A consumer health advocate and industry champion, Gormley has also been a frequent guest on television and national radio where he has spoken out on a variety of health and regulatory issues.

Supplements Scapegoated in Olympic Doping Case

Leading up to the Olympic Summer Games in Beijing controversy has erupted involving swimmer Jessica Hardy. Hardy tested positive for the banned stimulant clenbuterol at the U.S. Olympic trials. The source of this test result is unclear at present, but Hardy is appealing the result. If the tests are not overturned, she will be banned from participating in the Olympics.

In the meantime, Hardy's coach Dave Salo has placed the blame on "inadvertent consumption of a banned substance," and has suggested that all vitamins and supplements she used be tested for purity. Salo and other supporters of Hardy have gone on to suggest that her failed test results have occurred due to a lack of oversight within the supplement industry. Salo, as quoted by the Orange County Register: "The worse [sic] fears may be realized in this circumstance as it pertains to Jessica – i.e. the supplement industry runs unabated without any controls."

Unfortunately, blaming dietary supplements for an athlete’s failed drug test is not new. But, to contend that the supplement industry is allowed to operate without any oversight or control is simply not true.

Because of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 (DSHEA), the federal government has considerable regulatory power concerning the safety of supplements and the accuracy of their health claims. Of the many changes DSHEA instituted, the law enacted comprehensive labeling requirements for all supplements and determined that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulate dietary supplements with the same safety requirements that the agency applies to commonly used foods. The FDA has the authority to require that dietary supplements meet strict manufacturing standards concerning their potency, cleanliness and stability, as well as the authority to stop any sales of dietary supplements that are "adulterated.”

It was claimed that Hardy tested positive as a result of taking products by supplement company AdvoCare that contained substances banned by the NCAA. This information was posted in the original article by The OC Register as fact. However, within the past day, the article was pulled and a correction was posted, admitting that AdvoCare does not manufacture supplements containing the banned substance clenbuterol.

Read the full story at MSNBC.com, and let us know what you think about this controversy by commenting here.