The Mainstream Media's Anti-Vitamin Agenda!
SOME REVIEWS
The Mainstream Media’s Anti-Vitamin Agenda is the source for any person told by their doctor that there is no evidence that vitamins work. Tom Petrie lays out the evidence for the reader in a compelling and influential way. The best thing about TMMA-VA is that it is authentic from beginning to end, presenting the facts at which mainstream medicine and the media refuse to look. You can feel confident that the information in this book will guide you in making the right choices, so that you can keep yourself and your family in optimal health.
Dr. Charles Glassman, Coach MD;
author of the award-winning, bestseller Brain Drain,
and founder of the NY Center for Longevity & Wellness
Your wonderful book "Mainstream Media’s Anti-Vitamin Agenda" was the perfect antidote to all of the Vitamin maligning press that has scared many folks away from taking control of their own health and seeking alternative health options. I found your book to be very clear and well researched, many controversial vitamin issues were cleared up for me, and I am now more confident in my choices regarding vitamin supplementation!! Much Gratitude!
Susan Nevins, Nanuet, NY
An important study on the way the mainstream media distorts the benefits of nutritional supplements…Read this book to become better informed on this important issue.
Jeffrey C. Kopelson, M.D.,
Schachter Center for Complementary Medicine
Excellent—especially Appendix A Very much needed and well done!
Barbara Kravitz., C.C.N., Nutritionist
ABOUT THIS BOOK
The Mainstream Media’s Anti-Vitamin Agenda is the new edition of Anti-Vitamin Baloney, (2011), and it remains true to its original purpose: As a detailed and well documented rebuttal of several “anti-vitamin” articles that have appeared in the mainstream media. Two of them were from the Reader’s Digest. They are The Vitamin Myth, (or a different title for the cover, The Vitamin Hoax 10 Not to Take), from their November, 2007 issue and Vitamin Truths and Lies, (with The Vitamin Scam on the cover), from their April, 2010 edition. They sure wanted to be creative in bashing vitamins, didn’t they? One title for their covers and another for inside their magazine in both cases.
In the 2007 article, we were implored not to take vitamins A, beta-carotene, folic acid, niacin, vitamin C, vitamin E and the essential minerals selenium, iron and zinc. Wow—some of the most popular supplements out there and we’re…not supposed to take these? What’s going on here! Don’t worry—you’ll receive a detailed answer, in a way that should make sense to you, as to why this popular monthly magazine—and most of the rest of the mainstream media, for that matter, was, (and continues to be), wrong on this topic of vitamins and other nutritional supplements.
This book can also serve as a framework or guide with which to understand (or even appreciate), any absurd anti-vitamin article—examples that, all-too-often, populate our mainstream media today.
Chapter 12 is a NEW chapter for the 2nd edition of Anti-Vitamin Baloney, and discusses two recent additions to the anti-vitamin literature from the Archives of Internal Medicine and from the Journal of the American Medical Association. Like other anti-vitamin articles, these two studies have caused much angst and dismay across America. This chapter explains why these articles present nothing about which you need to be concerned and why you probably do not have to throw your supplements into the garbage!
For about the past fifteen years, there has been an ever-increasing appearance of studies supporting the positive health benefits of Vitamin D. Despite this fact, some writers still ignore these positive studies, and if they do not ignore them outright, choose to denigrate or disparage them, instead. This subject is further discussed in our new Chapter 12.
Chapter 13 explains in detail some of the reasons there are so many negative vitamin articles and you’ll probably be shocked by what you learn! When you’re finished reading this book, you’ll have a better understanding as to what’s wrong with these various negative vitamin articles and you’ll also learn why there are so many, not just in the Reader’s Digest, but across our mainstream media landscape. Hopefully you’ll rest easier if you are one of the millions of Americans who take dietary supplements on a regular basis.
Appendix A discusses environmental factors in cancer causation so often ignored by the mainstream media but to which we very much need to pay attention! Why are THESE topics not discussed in the mainstream media but so much attention is paid to bashing vitamins? This is a good question and it is my fervent hope that I provide answers that are clear and make sense to you.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements i
Forward to the New Edition iii
Introduction 1
Parts I & II
An In-Depth Critique of The Vitamin MYTH a Cover Story:
THE VITAMIN HOAX 10 Not to Take, Reader’s Digest, Nov., 2007 (by Neena Samuel)
Part I
1. The Myth of Increased Death/ Little Oversight, from Multi-vitamins; 7
2. The Case of the ‘Missing’ B-vitamins 15
Part II
3. Anti-Oxidant Vitamins: an Introduction 19
4. Vitamin A and Beta Carotene 27
5. Vitamin C: Should You Bother to Take It? 43
6. Folic Acid, Niacin, Selenium, Zinc and Iron 55
Part III
7. A Multivitamin Can Make Up for a Bad Diet (And who says they can?) 73
8. Myth: Vitamin C is a cold fighter (This is a myth according to whom?) 81
9. Myth: Vitamin pills can prevent heart disease (Is it really a myth?) 87
10. Myth: Taking vitamins can protect against cancer (But is this the right question?) 109
Part IV
11. Those Anti-Vitamin Articles Just Keep on Coming! (new for our 2nd ed.) 129
12. Vitamin D Research Continues to Intrigue and Enlighten (new for our 2nd ed.) 139
13. Conclusion: Misdirection, Misinformation and Public Relations:
They Just Go so Well Together! 159
Appendix A: Environmental Factors in Cancer Causation 189
Index 203