Supplements and Safety
The dietary supplement industry has seen a meteoric rise in popularity, with millions of Americans turning to these products for a boost to their health.
However, the unregulated nature of the industry has raised significant concerns about safety and efficacy. This documentary dives into the complex issues surrounding supplements, exploring the potential benefits, risks, and the regulatory challenges faced by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Supplements offer a convenient way to obtain essential nutrients and support overall health. They range from vitamins and minerals to herbal remedies and specialized formulas. Proponents of supplements argue that they can address deficiencies in a person's diet, improve immune function, and even prevent chronic diseases. However, the scientific evidence supporting these claims is often limited or inconclusive.
One of the most pressing concerns regarding supplements is the potential for harm. Contaminants, adulteration, and mislabeling have been documented in numerous cases. Additionally, some supplements may interact with prescription medications, leading to adverse side effects. The lack of rigorous testing and oversight has made it difficult to assess the safety and efficacy of many products.
The FDA plays a crucial role in regulating the supplement industry. However, its authority is limited compared to its oversight of prescription drugs. The agency can only take action against supplements that pose a significant health risk or are mislabeled. This has led to criticism that the FDA is too slow to respond to safety concerns, allowing potentially harmful products to remain on the market.
The supplement industry has also been accused of exerting undue influence over policymakers. Lobbying efforts have sought to limit regulatory oversight and protect the industry's profits. This has made it challenging for the FDA to implement stricter regulations and ensure consumer safety.
The dietary supplement industry presents a complex landscape with both potential benefits and risks. While supplements can be a valuable tool for addressing nutritional deficiencies, consumers must be aware of the potential dangers and exercise caution when selecting products.
This is mostly the same old deceptive BIASED hype against supplements (disguised as objective straightforward facts) that has been spread among the unwitting public at regular intervals by the criminal mainstream medical establishment. Predictably, this piece of propaganda comes from a major funded PR mouthpiece of the allopathic medical mafia.
Propaganda works best if repeated frequently, it's a prime feature of the sleazy advertising business and politics. And official medicine is nearly all about self-serving politics.
While it is true that there are issues with supplement product quality and product adulteration, especially among certain types of supplements such as diet products, they MUST be seen in the wider context to understand the issues' real significance in terms of absolute risks to you.
So if you look past this propaganda presented here you will recognize that HIGHLY Fda-regulated (for safety and effectiveness) products such as prescription drugs of the conventional medical business cause MULTIPE TIMES more damage to public health than LIGHTLY Fda regulated (for safety and effectiveness) supplements (the difference is like night and day!!!) --- read the scholarly article "Tougher Supplement Regulation: A Necessity Or Politics?"
The general public must understand that "Fda approval" of anything isn't a sign of scientific validity of product safety or effectiveness but mostly of corporate favoritism (see above reference).
The lack-of-meaningful-regulation argument has been extensively used by the medical profession/medical establishment to mislead the public into thinking that dietary supplements pose a great threat to their health. So, the deceptive calls for more federal regulation of supplements and anti-supplement rants, such as this one, are usually little more than total public deception.
This documentary is completely one-sided and made to deter people from helping themselves with natural products rather than pharmaceuticals, as other commentators have said. I've been studying Orthomolecular Medicine (the study of using vitamins and Minerals for health) for years and most of their claims in this film are just false. There is a TON of evidenced based science behind their use, but you wouldn't know it from this film would you? Linus Pauling won a Nobel Prize for his work with vitamin C. The Pharma industry are insidious, do not care at all about health and it is just so obvious that this documentary was funded by them. People are dying every minute from pharma drugs, it's a travesty. Yes you need to choose your supplements wisely, but you should also choose your health practitioner wisely.
Prescribed drugs are damaging our bodies every day whilst claiming to help us manage our health problems better. I have had to take medications since I was 6 months old. They barely managed to mask the problem, but over the years they have caused osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. I live in pain and right now, I take Ayurvedic medicines to try to alleviate these symptoms that drugs have caused.
First off, PBS sold out a few decades ago to the gov. and the mega-corporations, so this is hardly any kind of "documentary". Second, this is an obvious attempt by Big Pharma, which "donates" heavily to PBS, to divert attention away from their patent drugs which are killing people by the 100s of thousands. The stats from the last 3.5 years alone is proof of that . Unfortunately, there are still quite a few people who believe in PBS and will thus believe this nonsense, as well.