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Vitamin safety seems more and more in the news and on the lips of governmental agencies attempting to cast a disparaging light on supplements in the diet. In fact, a recent US National Institutes of Health (NIH) report did all it could to cast doubt on food supplement safety. Their findings drew a quick and informational response from the Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel.

According to the NIH, “More than half of American adults are taking dietary supplements, the majority of which are multivitamins, and the bottom line is that we don’t know for sure that they’re benefiting from them. In fact, we’re concerned that some people may be getting too much of certain nutrients,” said J. Michael McGinnis, M.D., who headed the panel.

The study was based on a review of available literature on the subject of vitamin and supple­ment safety. The conclusion of their findings was simply stated: “The overall quality and quanti­ty of the literature on the safety of multivitamin/mineral supplements is limited.”

The Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel was particularly critical of the study group for calling the literature on vitamin safety “limited” while completely ignoring over 600 papers on the subject from the specialist medical journal, the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine. This omission certainly showed bias, according to the independent review panel.

Also showing bias was the fact that the NIH completely ignored pharmaceutical drug dan­gers while concentrating on the unfounded concerns over daily multivitamins, said the panel. With over half of all Americans taking vitamins every day, the panel simply asked, “Where are the bodies?”

According to statistics compiled annually by the American Association of Poison Control Centers, multivitamins kill no one. On the other hand, in 2003, there were 59 deaths from aspirin alone. The Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel asserts that there is not one death per year from any vitamin in the alphabet; not from A, B’s, C, D or E. At the same time, documented reports show that over 100,000 people die annually from pharmaceutical drugs, even when taken as prescribed.

“Vitamin supplements are extraordinarily safe and effective,” said panelist Abram Hoffer, MD, who also has a PhD in nutritional biochemistry. “This is based on fifty years of clinical experience without seeing any life-threatening side effects and no deaths. It is drugs that are dangerous. Perhaps the US Food and Drug Administration is getting tired of all the bad news about drugs, so instead they are going after nutritional supplements.”

It is the conclusion of the Independent Vitamin Safety Review Panel that the US National Institutes of Health has ignored the benefits of vitamin supplementation, grossly overstated sup­posed risks, and in so doing, has both misinformed the public and harmed the public’s health.

Source: Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Press Release, 2006. http://www.orthomoleculatorg/resources/omns/v02n05.shtml