IAHF List: The NY Times are a pack of pro Pharma whores and must be reined in. Please join me by sending your own letter to their editor to complain about Jane Brody's outrageous anti dietary supplement article- see below. If you have a subscription to the NY Times, please cancel it and tell them you're cancelling it. If you don't have a subscription, tell them you'll never buy the paper again from a news stand or vending machine and let them know you're forwarding your letter widely to everyone you know!
To
the Editor: (letters@nytimes.com
I'm
writing to complain about Jane Brody's outrageous April 8th spin piece
"Potential for Harm in Dietary Supplements" http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/health/08brod.html?_r=2&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&ref=science&adxnnlx=1207681561-sYqxEM9z8nKBFuu8iIC8VQ
Complete with an illustration of vitamin capsules depicted as bombs
raining down from the sky, this obvious attack on the Dietary Supplement
Health and Education Act of 1994 is clearly motivated by advertising
revenue paid to the NY Times by pharmaceutical
interests as is amply documented by Mike Adams in this
article
http://www.naturalnews.com/001482.html
Adams clearly documents that the NY Times, and other major newspapers have
been chock full of pharmaceutical advertising ever since 1998 when the FDA
started allowing direct to consumer drug advertising. He shows an article
in the NY Times by Gina Kolata titled "Health Officials Urge Sharply Lower
Cholesterol Levels", then right next to this article we see an ad for
Crestor, a cholesterol lowering drug which is the same size as the
article.
The message is clear, we're being led by the NY Times
to believe that the answer to high cholesterol is to go to our doctor to
get a prescription for Crestor.
With millions of dollars in
advertising revenue being pumped into the NY Times by pharmaceutical
companies, all it would take to get any writer fired who dares to publish
an article favorable to dietary supplements is a single phone call. This is
the lowest form of media whoring, and I'm disgusted by it. The NY Times was
known, at one time, for its balanced reporting. That is clearly a thing of
the past.
Data from the American Association of Poison Control
Centers clearly shows the extreme safety of dietary supplements when
compared with both prescription and OTC drugs. The Dietary Supplement
Health and Education Act of 1994 was passed in the face of a draconian FDA
rulemaking effort that threatened to sharply curtail consumer access to
dietary supplements. Its passage was made possible by the largest flood of
mail to congress on any issue in the history of Congress- more mail than
they even received due to the war in Vietnam. We don't need the FDA to
protect us from safe dietary supplements, we need the FDA to protect us
from dangerous pharmaceutical and OTC drugs, but its not happening due to
the revolving door between the FDA and the pharmaceutical
industry.
Clearly, we have this same problem with major newspapers
including the NY Times which should be warning people about the extreme
dangers of fraudulently approved prescription drugs- not wasting our time
with this sort of sensationalistic pro Pharma spin. Why don't
you publish an article titled "Potential for Harm in
Walking Across the Street"? I will never again buy
a copy of the NY Times, and am forwarding my response to you widely.
John Hammell
556 Boundary Bay Rd.
Point Roberts WA
98281
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