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Welcome to the May 2012 homepage edition of i2P-Information to Pharmacists. Rollo Manning has been having some time out having staples removed from the site of his open heart surgery.He is now at home recuperating in Darwin, having arrived home last Friday, beating a cold and hasty retreat from Canberra.We all wish him a speedy recovery and hopefully, he will be fit enough to contribute by next month.
This month, Pharmedia discusses the toll that is taken when someone complains about you to an authority without good cause. Well, the good news is that you can now take action to protect yourself if such a complaint is made, and that may even include action for defamation. Read about a recent case involving two doctors, with Mark Coleman drawing on personal experience to illustrate.

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Vitamin, Vita-minis and Vegemite

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	Loretta Marron BSc articles by this author...
From a Skeptics Perspective: Loretta Marron, a science graduate with a business background, was Australian Skeptic of the Year for 2007 and in 2011. She edits the website www.healthinformation.com.au.

In April this year every Sunday paper around Australia included a multi-page health questionnaire called ‘thetest’.
As I’m always keen to improve my health habits, I dug my spoon into my jar of vegemite, curled up on the couch and for the next 45 minutes ticked all the relevant boxes.
By the time I was finished my spoon was licked clean and I was ready for the result.
This month I’ll talk about the disturbing outcome of that questionnaire.

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Like many people in my age group I’ll admit that I’m still a ‘happy little vegemite’. Those of us who grew up in the sixties would remember it as a permanent fixture in the kitchen cupboard. These days it usually takes me a year or two to get through a jar, but with no fat and sugar, as snacks go, it is a healthy alternative to a biscuit. Besides, it has loads of B Vitamins in it and other healthy goodies as well.

We all need vitamins. Required in miniscule doses they keep us healthy. According to Cancer Research UK, the “best way to get your full range of vitamins and minerals is to eat a healthy, balanced diet, with a variety of fruit and vegetables”. They also state that “Vitamin supplements do not have the same benefits as getting naturally-occurring vitamins in your food.” Most Australians have year round access to an amazing selection of fruit and vegies at low cost, and as it’s “thought that in fruit and vegetables, vitamins and nutrients interact with other chemicals to produce positive effects” it’s the best way to get your daily vitamin allowance.

I’ve had cancer, so keeping healthy is a priority for me. At this time of year, I start the day with banana on my muesli followed by an avocado for lunch, a stir fry with at least half a dozen vegies for tea, and a late night custard apple for dessert. I also love my fish so I certainly don’t need to take any supplements. I enjoy walking and gardening, I’ve never smoked, I’m not overweight, I’ve great friends and I laugh a lot, so I was sure I would do well in the questionnaire.

To get ‘thetest’ results, I had to go to a websitei and fill it out again on-line. I failed. Not even 50%. What surprised me was that ‘ the test’ told me that I need to take a daily supplement!

For the first time I noticed the sponsors. There was Nature’s Own from Sanofit-Aventis and AMCAL from Sigma. Those two multinational pharmaceutical giantsii, pretty well cover the majority of natural medicines found in pharmacies, and they own most of the pharmacy trading names, so perhaps that explains my unexpected results.

45,000 people from around Australia filled out that questionnaire and now we are all receiving regular emails. One email even recommended “chiropractic, Chinese medicine, naturopathy and homeopathy”, so the questionnaire is undoubtedly scientifically challenged and had a hidden agenda.

Vitamins are big business. Ask a doctor about them and they will tell you that unless you have a deficiency you are just ‘making expensive pee’. There is relentless marketing on them and catchy jingles such as ‘put your health first’, ‘unlock your energy’, ‘tired? Stressed?’- pop a pill and you will soon be running around the block – or so you are led to believe. Even with no evidence to support the claims made, 60% of Australians are swallowing them like lollies.

Sponsors are also now aggressively targeting children “with more than a quarter of children aged five to 10 being fed vitamin tablets”. Calling them cute names like Vita-minisiv or ‘kidz’, they are packaged with crayons, in animal shapes, fruit flavoured and with cartoon characters on the boxes. Mums and dads are being made to feel they are bad parents and that their kids will be low achievers, if they don’t give them a daily supplement. It has become the latest fashion.

In my day it was a spoon full of cod liver oil – a great placebo full of goodness and with a taste so awful that it was sure to have you feeling better in record time. Taking a daily vitamin is undoubtedly teaching children that a pill will fix everything, starting them on their road to adulthood with potentially lifelong habit as hypochondriacs and serial pill poppers. They are learning that pills are safe and are good for you and they may even take these lessons to their local disco where what’s on offer can have tragic consequences.

I would like to know who was really behind the Sunday paper questionnaire, because the information you get is bound to have you racing to the naturopath in your local pharmacy to stock up on pills.

If I go to my pharmacist and ask about taking vitamins and supplements, knowing that it’s easy money for him, I wonder what advice I would get?

References

(i) thetest www.thetest.com.au

(ii) Pharmacy Owners –Saints or Sinners?
http://i2p.com.au/?page=site/article&id=1302

(iii) Vitamin Kids, TodayTonight
http://au.todaytonight.yahoo.com/article/5440986/health/vitamin-kids

(iv)TGA Listed Products
https://www.ebs.tga.gov.au/ebs/ANZTPAR/PublicWeb.nsf/publicSearch?openAgent&id=P~vita-minis~1

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