Following a recent announcement of a new study showing the
phenomenal benefits of antioxidants for preventing heart disease
in women, the mainstream media rallied behind a blatantly false
distortion of the study designed to convince the public that
vitamins E and C are somehow useless.
The popular press, which maintains an incestuous relationship
with the pharmaceutical industry, once again demonstrates it
is little more than a mouthpiece for the pro-pharma propaganda
machine. There is no scrutiny of the study's findings, no critical
thinking and absolutely no independent journalism being conducted
by the mainstream media on this particular topic. It seems media
outlets are too eager to be spoon-fed the latest propaganda
from drug company collaborators and then parrot it out to the
public as fact.
The distortion in question concerns the assessment of women
who participated in a nine year trial measuring the effects
of vitamins E and C. According to the results published in the
Archives of Internal Medicine, women who took these
vitamins on a regular basis experienced a remarkable and statistically
significant reduction in stroke risk (31 percent) and heart
attack risk (22 percent). Not all the women in the study, of
course, actually took the vitamins on a regular basis, and when
you count the results of those women who never took the vitamins,
the study shows no statistically significant benefits for vitamins
E and C. In other words, the vitamins didn't work on those who
didn't take them. (Is this surprising to anyone?)
The mainstream media has taken hold of this statistical distortion
and declared that antioxidants are now useless for preventing
heart disease. Utterly ignoring the fact that the vitamins worked
remarkably well in those who actually took them, the media now
seems to be on a crusade to discredit nutritional supplements
by lying to its readers. Having abandoned all common sense or
scientific scrutiny, the media is now engaged in an organized
campaign of disinformation designed to boost the profits of
their largest advertisers -- the drug companies -- by spreading
fear, uncertainty and doubt about nutritional supplements.
Here are some of the headlines that appeared yesterday in the
mainstream media. As you read these, keep in mind that these
are stories based on a study that actually found significant
protective benefits for those women who took the antioxidants:
WebMD
Antioxidants Don't Lower Heart Risk
FOX News
Study: Antioxidants Do Not Protect High-Risk Women from Heart
Disease
Xinhua, China
Antioxidants cut no heart disease rate in high-risk women
Scotsman, United Kingdom
Nutrients 'do not cut heart risks among vulnerable'
CTV.ca, Canada
Antioxidant pills don't prevent heart disease
Bloomberg
Antioxidants Don't Cut Heart Disease Rates in High-Risk Women
ABC News
Vitamins No Magic Bullet for Heart Health
Forbes, NY
Antioxidants No Magic Bullet for Heart Disease in Women
Natural Products Industry Insider
Antioxidants Don't Impact CVD Events in High-Risk Women
Reuters
Common vitamins no help for women's hearts - study
Turning Truth Upside Down
Of course, the idea that antioxidants are useless for
preventing disease is as absurd as thinking the Earth is the center
of the universe, or that pigs can fly. Yet this is the position
being promoted by the press today in blatant abandonment of all
rational thought.
It is suprising as to why they even bothered to give antioxidants
to the participating women at all. If you're going to count the
results of all the women who don't take the supplements, why not
simply launch the study, give vitamins to no one, then announce
the conclusion that vitamins don't work? This could create a whole
new way to conduct clinical research: Track the health results
in people who have taken nothing! Think of what we could accomplish
in medical science by following this model -- we could test thousands
of different substances by simply giving them to no one, then
declaring whatever results we wish to notice!
Ultimately, that's the outcome of such studies. Researchers are
simply declaring whatever they want with no real regard to scientific
truth or common sense. Much of medical science today has become
a self-reinforcing exercise in pro-pharma dogma. Listening to
drug-company funded researchers talk about nutritional science
is a lot like listening to President Bush talk about peace: There
is simply no connection with reality.
There are so many falsehoods routinely printed in the mainstream
media these days that it has become a rarity to find any piece
of truth. From fudged war casualty numbers to details about health
care, the media has proven itself incapable of printing anything
resembling factual truth. Instead, it has become a pro-war, pro-corporation,
pro-disease, pro-market, profit-minded mouthpiece for the corrupt
elite who now run governments.
Keeping The Population Distracted
As such, the media has quite literally become the enemy of the
people. Rather than informing people about things that matter
in the world, the media uses its power to fill peoples' heads
with falsehoods.
It's all become bread and circuses. (
Click
here to read the Wikipedia explanation of this phrase "bread and
circuses")
Governments no longer have any desire to keep people informed,
educated or healthy. The effort now is to keep people disinformed,
ignorant and diseased. This is accomplished precisely through
actions like this antioxidant study in which researchers pretending
to conduct science send fabricated stories to a press pretending
to report the news. When this kind of action is repeated a few
hundred times a year, it leaves the population distrusting all
nutritional supplements and believing that only synthetic patented
chemicals (pharmaceuticals) can solve their health problems. It
is no coincidence that pharmaceuticals are allowed to be advertised
everywhere, promoted with outrageously false claims of benefits,
and that such advertising is in no way regulated by anyone. "Free
speech" is granted to pharmaceutical companies, but not to dietary
supplement companies.
Corporations Have Control Of Governments
These corporations have taken over government, regulatory bodies
and the media. Corporations have become the power monopolists
and now pose a threat of tyranny far more dangerous than any king
or dictator. Not only are the people virtually powerless to stand
up against the tyranny of corporations, but the very channel through
which the people were supposed to be kept informed about such
threats -- the mainstream media -- has actually become a supporter
of tyranny itself. It is now part of the problem.
The press, for its part, is increasingly irrelevant to reality.
That's why all the smart people now get their information online.
They read intelligent blogs, commentary sites and independent
news articles. They realize the newsstand magazines are tabloid
rags, the cable news shows are mindless entertainment for the
masses, and the newspapers largely just reprint whatever fictional
"news" stories comes their way without proper investigation. Intelligent
consumers have long since realized that popular information sources
simply cannot be trusted and that anyone wishing to be truly informed
about what's coming in the years ahead must make an effort to
seek out information from the few independent, non-corporate-controlled
information sources that exist only on the 'net.
