Reader's Digest Shill For Pharm Industry?

[mellowsong]

I had subscribed to Reader's Digest since I was about 18. A similar article published in 2007 caused me to drop my subscription. I also wrote to them and of course, my letter/comments were not printed.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, March 31, 2010

Does READER'S DIGEST Shill for the Pharmaceutical Industry?
Or is it Only a Really Bad April Fool's Joke?

Comment by Andrew W. Saul
Editor-In-Chief, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service

(OMNS, Mar 31, 2010) Reader's Digest's editors cannot possibly be as ignorant as their April 2010 article "5 Vitamin Truths and Lies" seems to indicate.

Or can they?

Surely their silly attempt at vitamin-bashing is merely an April Fool's joke.

Isn't it?

Read over "5 Vitamin Truths and Lies" and decide for yourself. It is online at http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/5-vitamin-truths-and-lies/article175625.html Be sure to note readers' comments following the article. You may wish to leave a comment or two of your own.

Reader's Digest's circulation, by the way, is dropping rapidly. Once, it had a circulation of 18 million. (1) Just a few years ago, it had a circulation of 8 million. It is now 5.5 million. (2) The magazine is also no longer published every month, but is down to 10 issues a year.

Furthermore, Reader's Digest posted a loss of $653 million in only nine months of last year, and the company is in debt for a whopping $2.1 billion. (2)

Perhaps they are getting desperate for cash. At least that might explain the 15 pages of pharmaceutical advertising in their April 2010 issue.

Peer-reviewed research shows that pharmaceutical advertising does in fact bias periodicals against vitamin therapy. (3)

A laughably-biased article such as "5 Vitamin Truths and Lies" confirms it.

To send your thoughts directly to the Reader's Digest editors: RDEditorial_RDW@ReadersDigest.com

When you've done so, please feel free to send us a copy of your correspondence with RD: omns@orthomolecular.org. A sampling of your letters will be selected for the next OMNS.

To learn more about how vitamins safely and effectively fight disease: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml

References:

(1) US History Encyclopedia, accessed at http://www.answers.com/topic/reader-s-digest

(2) Flamm M. Reader's Digest cuts circulation, expands digital options. June 19, 2009. http://www.crainsnewyork.com/article/20090619/FREE/906199993

(3) Pharmaceutical advertising biases journals against vitamin supplements. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, Feb 5, 2009. http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v05n02.shtml

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine

Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org

The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

This article may be reprinted free of charge provided 1) that there is clear attribution to the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, and 2) that both the OMNS free subscription link http://orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html and also the OMNS archive link http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml are included.

[Islander]

I just posted a comment that used all 500 characters. I offered to write a rebuttal. Think they'll bite? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

[Maurya]

Unfortunately, many more people still read publications such as Readers' Digest than, say "The Townsend Letter" or other reputable publications. We the people have been bought and sold more times than the average bundled sub-prime mortgage backed securities. And we usually have such a tangled mess of 'what we think we know" in our heads that we might never even figure out who or what has purchased our very thoughts. banghead

[Islander]

I've now posted 2 comments and neither one shows up. Maybe because I inlcuded a link to HH? I've skimmed through 5-6 pages of comments (there are MANY more) and found only 2, both by "evidence-based" docs, that were supportive. Everyone else is aghast.

[mellowsong]

I just posted a comment that used all 500 characters. I offered to write a rebuttal. Think they'll bite? Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

I made the same offer a few years ago and even mailed them a rough draft :) No response whatsoever.

[Islander]

Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, April 3, 2010
Doctors Say, Reader's Digest is Wrong
Physicians and Researchers Set the Record Straight about Vitamins


(OMNS, Apr 3, 2010) Yes, Reader's Digest actually said:
"Once upon a time, you believed in the tooth fairy. . . And you figured that taking vitamins was good for you. Oh, it's painful when another myth gets shattered." ( http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/5-vitamin-truths-and-lies/article175625.html (http://www.cihfimediaservices.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=61&e=MTY3MDg=&l=-http--www.rd.com/living-healthy/5-vitamin-truths-and-lies/article175625.html) )
But these doctors disagree:
"From start to finish, the Reader's Digest article, '5 Vitamin Truths and Lies' was one of the worst bits of propaganda I ever saw. There was not one word in it discussing the benefits of multivitamins, vitamin C, and studies supporting the use of vitamins for preventing cancer and heart disease. Not once was a single dose mentioned. This alone makes the entire effort a farce aimed at a readership that is relying on the publication for accurate information."
Allan N. Spreen, M.D. (Mesa, AZ)
"Vitamins are among the safest substances known. They have the most minimal side effects, even in large doses, compared with the death rate due to conventional drugs taken according to the manufacturers' advice. Vitamin C is among the most powerful immune modulators if given in large doses. Scare stories against the use of vitamins do the public no good."
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Vancouver, BC)
"This is not the first time Reader's Digest has written about "bad" vitamins, and they always seem to manage to put it on the front page. But look at their advertising: so much of it is for pharmaceutical drugs. No wonder the article states virtually nothing of the thousands of positive results with vitamins."
James A. Jackson, Ph.D. (Wichita, KS)
"The author of the Reader's Digest article has not understood the articles used to support her arguments. For example, with vitamin C and the common cold, the article appears to refer to the 2007 Cochrane report. However, this report has been updated frequently since 2007. The last update was on February 2nd of this year. Either the reporter did not read the up-to-date review, or she was unable to understand its content. The review applies only to low intakes, and contains major objections that studies of large doses and orthomolecular intakes were not included. All the data were for intakes far below the levels actually claimed to be effective. The summary of the paper does indeed give a misleading impression, but people might expect an intelligent reporter to check the rest of the report before giving advice."
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (Manchester, UK)
"The material was not well-researched, and a bias was clearly in play. 15 pages of drug advertisements in that issue of Reader's Digest is very telling, indeed."
Thomas E. Levy, M.D. (Colorado Springs, CO)
"What a poor job! Reader's Digest needs to review the literature. Haven't they read any articles by Dr. Bruce Ames? Do they know what quantities of vitamin C ascorbic were used in the cold studies mentioned in their one-sided report? Do they know of the high doses that showed benefit? Do they know of the many studies that have reported benefit from vitamin E and carotenes? It's easy to be ignorant but biased. Before a magazine does such a public health disservice, first get the all the facts."
Michael J. Gonzalez, Ph.D. (San Juan, PR)
"As a family practitioner who has prescribed vitamins for many reasons, with beneficial results over the past 25 years, I have removed Reader's Digest from my waiting room. Unless there is a follow-up article disclaiming most of what was written, I will discourage my patients from reading Reader's Digest because of their biased and misleading information."
Stephen Faulkner, M.D. (Duncan, BC)
Owen Fonorow of The Vitamin C Foundation adds:
"Why did Reader's Digest deem it appropriate to publish unbalanced opinions about the value of vitamins in the April 2010 issue? A balanced report would have quoted experts from both sides of the argument. The negative studies of vitamins are biased, utilizing too small amounts, especially of vitamin C, to fairly evaluate the therapeutic use of the vitamins. There is a 70-year-long history of vitamin C research (now more than 80,000 papers) that consistently shows therapeutic results at higher dosages of many thousands of milligrams. Linus Pauling recommended at least 5,000 mg of vitamin C daily for reversing heart disease. It is a serious public health mistake for Reader's Digest to recommend against a multivitamin."
To give Reader's Digest one more chance at the truth, send your thoughts directly to the people responsible: RDEditorial_RDW@ReadersDigest.com (http://us.mc530.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=RDEditorial_RDW@ReadersDigest.com)
To learn more about how high doses of vitamins safely and effectively fight disease: http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml (http://www.cihfimediaservices.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=61&e=MTY3MDg=&l=-http--orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/index.shtml)

Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fight illness. For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org (http://www.cihfimediaservices.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=61&e=MTY3MDg=&l=-http--www.orthomolecular.org)
The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and non-commercial informational resource.

Editorial Review Board:
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D. (Canada)
Damien Downing, M.D. (United Kingdom)
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D. (Puerto Rico)
Steve Hickey, Ph.D. (United Kingdom)
James A. Jackson, PhD (USA)
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D (Sweden)
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D. (USA)
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D. (Puerto Rico)
Erik Paterson, M.D. (Canada)
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D. (Netherlands)
Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D. (USA), Editor and contact person. Email: omns@orthomolecular.org (http://us.mc530.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=omns@orthomolecular.org)
To Subscribe at no charge: http://www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html (http://www.cihfimediaservices.org/12all/lt/t_go.php?i=61&e=MTY3MDg=&l=-http--www.orthomolecular.org/subscribe.html)

[DizzyIzzy]

Ha, what a joke. Hasn't Reader's Digest been like this for years though? I remember reading something in there a long, long time ago and throwing it out in disgust.

[Aaltrude]

It always used to annoy me that Readers Digest seemed to be the standard reading in waiting rooms. I have heard of a doctor however that wouldn't let them near his waiting room. He said patients would read about various medical conditions in Readers Digest while waiting for their appointment them come in to see him convinced they the disorder they had just been reading about 19

[Islander]

I am George's spleen.