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BEWARE

I would like to ask that people be respectful of others in this comments area. You can make your point without being insulting. When you make a point aggressively, it polarizes people instead of convincing them.

This is the new forum. As we explained last week, the old one just wasn’t getting much traffic and, since this comments section was where the action was taking place, we decided to focus our attention here.

Your point about the “alternative/natural” medicine people is spot on. I agree that my industry is also fraught with too many people scamming and telling half-truths. Unfortunately, it’s also difficult to weed out the good from the bad here as well. When my friend Doug accepted ads from glyconutrients people, I told him I was not thrilled and that it would cut into his credibility. Doug depends on sponsor dollars to be able to air his show. It’s tough to find good advertisers who want to support an alternative show. On balance, he offers good advice and certainly some “interesting points of view”. I don’t agree with some of what he says or his guests say, but his is still the best health talk show on television and it’s one of the few areas I can educate the public on my own views. To his credit, he did eventually pull the ads on glyconutrients when he saw the evidence. He also pulled ads for “foot detox baths” after he reviewed the evidence. We are working together to try to find that balance between sponsor dollars and good credible products. It’s not easy.

It’s tough for me to find a platform to educate and legitimately sell my products. The FDA won’t let me say much about their effectiveness, so I have to talk about how the body works and what nutrients support those functions. In the end, your understanding of how things work makes it easier for you and others to see how drugs might “interfere, block or circumvent” normal healing processes, but how some specific alternative methods might “support” normal and healthy structure and function.

For sure, there are a few drugs out there that have saved lives. I’m not disputing that. The problem is that most of the drugs developed and marketed by Big Pharma (the ones that collectively account for over 80% of the revenues) are lifestyle drugs that are unnecessary for the majority of people for whom they are prescribed. In many cases, the NNT (number needed to treat in order to save one person) is in the hundreds and the costs to society in the hundreds of thousands of dollars per life saved. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: in my opinion, statin drugs are the single biggest medical hoax ever perpetrated on the American public. Antipsychotics and antidepressants are close second, given out like candy whenever a patient asks (because they saw on TV that shyness is a disease). Type 2 diabetics are led to believe they they can’t live without their oral hypoglycemics (instead of simply cutting carbs and exercising). Anyone with any joint or muscle pain reaches for the Cox 2inhibitors (to mask symptons) first as opposed to looking at diet and other causation factors. Erectyle disfunction meds have become recreational drugs. We have created a drug-based treatment paradigm and we are on a very slippery slope if we continue.

I am quite aware of the costs associated with bringing a new drug to market and doing clinical trials. And, by the way, those costs are extremely inflated as reported by the drug companies. It’s their obscene marketing costs that get passed on to the consumer that I object to. That and the creation of new diseases to fit the new “discoveries” (restless leg, anyone?)

I am as pro-business as anyone could ever be. I am for keeping government out of my life. But I am also not going to be kicked around by a broken medical system that perpetuates itself by convincing an uneducated public that they can’t live without their drugs. If the FDA won’t say anything, who will? THat’s why we write about it here. Someone has to initiate a serious discussion. Thanks for your comments and participation here.