One of our members brought the following Sep 1, 2015 The Fifth Estate (CBC) Facebook post to our attention yesterday. If it’s still open, you may want to consider contacting Anita Elash at anita.elash@cbc.ca. Read this post first and proceed with caution.
“CALLOUT (please share): We are looking for families in the GTA who use a variety of dietary supplements to ensure their optimal health to participate in a story we’re working on. Consumers are bombarded with mixed messages about supplements and we’re trying to make sense of them. We want to talk to people who have found natural health products beneficial. Ideally, we’re hoping to talk to families who have at least one child, who use supplements alongside conventional medicine, and who are willing to talk to us on camera and open their homes to a television crew. If you are interested in participating or have questions about the show, please reach out.”
NHPPA did a quick search of the CBC site for related pieces on supplementation and found a number of recent reports, conflicted.
Aug 17, 2015 (video) Are Vitamins Worth The Money?
In two back to back scenes the CBC reporter says, “Peer reviewed study after peer reviewed study, have found very little measurable health benefit to taking vitamins or multivitamins, in otherwise healthy people. And yet for many family physicians they still won’t discourage their patients from taking vitamins or multivitamins because there is no real health risk in doing so.” Straight cut to a family physician commenting, “…so when someone comes in and asks me if they should continue taking a vitamin supplement that they have been taking, I usually tell them that there’s not any evidence of a benefit but they should consider the potential harms and the cost, given that there’s no demonstrated benefit.”
Aug 15, 2015 (article) Vitamins from A to Zinc: A reality check
Cases when doctors recommend supplements often the exception rather than the rule. (This is a written version of the above)
Aug 5, 2015 (radio) IV Vitamin Therapy
In another single sided report, Dr. Peter Lin commented, “Vitamins by definition are things that we need in small amounts that keep us alive… Do you really need a firehose if you just want a little bit of a drink of water?”; “…where we differ in terms of the naturopathic way which is “over” replacement, versus the right amount.”; and,“… people are trading away things that are useful right now, that have been proven, for things that may not be so well proven.”
Jul 22, 2015 (Facebook) “the fifth estate wants to talk to Canadians who have had a serious adverse reaction to a natural health product.”
This post garnered comments from many activist names NHPPA recognized. Fantastic rebuttal comments! Adding your own now will not go unnoticed!
