Customer Reviews

The Vitamin Pushers: How the "Health Food" Industry Is Selling America a Bill of Goods (Consumer Health Library)

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Barrett's book is a worthwhile read for anyone with an interest in the subject matter. As a critic of several modes and practitioners of alternative medicine, Barrett has been a natural lightening rod for criticism by those whose scams he has exposed. The negative Amazon reviews here should be taken with a huge grain of salt. Many of these reviews reflect ideologically opposition to criticism of alternative medicine; they don't even discuss the content of Barrett's book...the critics probably never even read it. Barrett's most outspoken critics have been involved in court cases against him and most of what they say is just slanderous mudslinging. Sources that matter, like the Journal of the American Medical Association and Canadian Medical Association, give Barrett the thumbs up. We need more people like him guarding consumers against healthcare fraud. Buy this book and learn how to protect yourself against con artists.

I own this book and it has saved me from falling into the health food trap. If you want to learn the truth about the health food industry read this book.

I am not, nor have I ever been, involved in a health-related profession. I am in technology by training and career. So, I don't have a dog in this fight, as it were.

What I do know, though, is that there is a "standard of truth" -- the double-blind study.

If the modality is valid, if the benefits real, then they should be able to be demonstrated. Line up 1000 folks in one group and offer the remedy. Line up 1000 folks in a second (control) group, and offer them the fake (placebo is the operative word). Then, let the experiment run....

In three years, five years, ten years, the group receiving the remedy should be able to show quantifiable, statistically significant, differentiation. ("X" percentage less of occurrences of cancer, "Y" percentage less incidence of diabetes, or whatever outcome.) Elsewise, there is no basis whatsoever to claim a "cause" leading to an "effect".

Without this, we are at liberty to disregard the claims. This is COMPLETELY lacking in the "Health Food" industry. As I have read their, yes, I will say "so-called" research; it is anecdotal at best, relying on a small group of people relating how they "feel," possibly a result they "want", with no documentable, measurable outcome. It is academically dishonest at best. For some people making a ton of money on these products, one would expect someone, somewhere would be forwarding the cash to actually conduct the definitive study, subject their findins to critical, juried review, as I've laid out in the paragraphs above. Then, we can plant the flag and claim "truth". But, still, we hear nothing but crickets chirping.

As I have read Dr. Barrett in this treatise, he simply points this out. Nothing more. His lengthy references and annotations are legitimate as I've looked those up and corroborated.

Quality of the food supply? Depleted soil? Nah. It is the DNA and RNA combination which determines the outcome of the growth of a carrot. Postulating a dearth of the chemical building blocks (atoms and molecules) available, then, these processes are aborted, and the carrot simply does not materialize. The fact it even exists means that the vegetable has all the same molecular make-up, ergo, the same nutritive quality, per cubic inch of product, as any "parent" carrot from time immemorial.

Read this book. It is a great read, and you will be innoculated against hype and advertising. Let the Buyer Beware. Or, as P.T. Barnum once should have said, "A fool and his money should have never gotten together in the first place."

This book debunks a lot of popular myths and misconceptions regarding fad diets, supplements and related quackery, and provides sensible information on nutrition. As a personal trainer, this information has been of trementous value to me for helping my clients avoid being suckered into wasting money on worthless diet supplements and compromising their health with unbalanced fad diets.

I'm not surprised that a lot of people have given the book very poor reviews. A lot of people stand to lose a lot of money if the public becomes educated about such things, and it is natural that they would become defensive and hostile towards something that threatens their livelihood or beliefs. However, ignore the bad reviews, and buy this book. Better yet, buy two copies, because you'll find yourself lending it out often.

Americans have been indoctrinated by the media to believe the preposterous claims of thousands of quacks now running amok and exempted from anti-fraud laws by corrupt, incompetent and ignorant legislators and regulators. This book is a terrific antidote to the title wave of nonsense presented in the hundreds of hoax books that have turned libraries and bookstores into minefields of misinformation. The book is disturbing to many in the same way that telling a child Santa Claus is a myth is disturbing to a young child. But the truth will free them from the shackles of quackery with all its dangers and expenses.

His publishers own review proves his intent to deceive. Siting the essential amino acid tryptophan as a dangerous treatment that the FDA banned for numerous deaths. It is good that they only banned it in supplements or we would all be dead. Luckily they still allowed it in the food supply because it is an essential amino acid. It is contrary to accepted scientific thought that a substance that is essential in food would be deadly when put into a pill. And he still uses it as a prime example of the proven danger of taking natural supplements ("that don't grow on trees")instead of pharmaceutical drugs; which by extension of his logic, he must believe grow on trees. All the cases of Eosinophilia Myalgia Syndrome came from a single manufacturer, Showa Denko KK, when they used GMO's in its production. The contamination of tryptophan by EBT ( 1,1'-ethylidene-bis[tryptophan]) has since been corrected, tryptophan vindicated as safe, and the ban long since lifted. And it does grow on trees. Half cup of almonds has over 100 mg of tryptophan. I suspect he wrote the book as comedy. Anyone well read in the subjects would be rolling on the floor laughing.

This book is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, there are scams involving vitamins, but there are con artists in EVERY industry/profession. Many of their arguments are illogical and/or just plain silly. The authors are clearly very biased, and, ironically (though not to my surprise), they provide no scientific references from the literature to support their claims. Further, the argument that vitamins pills would grow on trees if we needed them is an example of their illogical and unreasonable nature. Fortunately doctors like Herbert don't grow on trees; for if they did, we would surely be comdemned to a life of mediocre health. Herbert, with his perpetual campaign against nutritional supplements, is doing humans a disservice in an age of a degraded food supply and overwhelming evidence that nutrients can prevent and treat disease.

Supplement means to supply a deficiency. Essential means absolutely necessary or indispensable.

Health Food Industry has made the Vitamins from supplements to essential to all normal human being. Being normal is 100% healthy and it is okay.

Here are Barrett's major points, (with my comments):1/the USDA Food Guide Pyramid is all you need. (Really, then why has the pyramid been changed so many times? Have our needs as a species changed?) 2/ Following the US Dietary Guidelines will prevent all deficiencies.(By it's -own- standards, yes. Should one organization decide both the requirements -and- judge the results? The only thing that could possibly make them wrong would be for them to admit it. Not likely. It's a self-monitoring agency..not a good thing. 3/All vitamin companies are liars. (Some are, some aren't, just like any group. You're a psychiatrist, how honest did Freud turn out to be?) 4/Stress causes the symptoms that are attributed to poor diet. (A psychiatrist would think that, of course. Aside from that, says who? A 25-year-long suppressed government paper states that nutritional deficencies are the #1 cause of health problems. ) 5/Milled out B vitamins are put back with enrichment.(Sounds like adding VITAMINS to me, I thought you were against that. And how do you replace nutrients that science hasn't discovered yet?) 6/Only a few vitamins are sensitive to heat.(Only a few? I guess too few to matter?)7/Minerals are not destroyed by cooking. (Correct, but they are -altered-, and that can't be a good thing, assuming they were in the correct form in the first place.) 8/Additives aren't proven to cause problems.(Very close to proven, Doc. I don't want to die to prove it. The agencies in charge of safety don't have the time,resources, inclination, or even the legal right to check -every- ingredient thoroughly, and the synergy of combined ingredients isn't even something they -attempt- to test. The -government- must prove an ingredient is -unsafe-; it's -not- the duty of the manufacturer to prove that it -is- safe. Is -that- really safe?) 9/Fluoride is good. (There is so much detailed evidence against fluoride that I accuse any proponent of collusion with the industry.) 10/Small doses of pesticides are no problem. (How small, and who's measuring? Even if this is possibly true for the few poisons that break down quickly, it is absolutely untrue for poisons that remain intact and accumulate over one's lifetime; small now is big later. This has been proven to be an especially -deadly- lie when synergy of poisons sometimes increase their toxicity a -thousand- times over). There's plenty more, of course. I believe Barrett knows where his bread is buttered. Corporate criminals need confederates in medicine to make the machine work...Doesn't psychiatry have a bad enough reputation already? This book would be joke if it weren't so dangerous./// For a truer look at the modern world's effect on our health, read _The Hundred Year Lie_, by Randall Fitzgerald. The author is not an advocate of the typical health food products, (which are often just as filled with unlabeled additives as the 'foods' Barrett defends), but convincingly, debunks Barrett's claims for the safety of government approved additives to , and manipulations of our food supply./// The AMA is a -political- organization, NOT a -medical- one: It's purpose is to -strengthen itself-, which it has largely succeeded in doing by using it's massive assets & blind public trust to undermine all competing forms of treatment.

There may be some extreme views about vitamins, but there has been much documented scientific evidence that illustrates that prescription drugs do far more harm than good to the liver, and many other organs of the body. Your body is made up of vitamins and minerals, and it makes sense that if you supply it with the vitamins and minerals that it needs that it will be in much better health. We are bombarded on every side by carcinogens and preservatives in our food. Since 1938 it has been known even by Congress that our food is lacking in mineral content because of the depletion of the soils. It makes sense that we need to get these minerals in our diet somehow. Prescription drugs are synthetic substances that are foreign to the body. They may help with one problem, but they often create other bad side effects. If we were created to use prescription drugs, then we would have been born with a prescription in our hands. There have also been many doctors that have hundreds of cases to attest to the value of vitamin and mineral supplementation, and their role in the treatment and prevention of disease.