Product Description
A riveting work of investigative journalism that charts the rise of the dietary supplement craze and reveals the dangerous—and sometimes deadly—side of these highly popular and completely unregulated products.
Over 60 percent of Americans buy and take herbal and dietary supplements for all sorts of reasons—to prevent illness (vitamin C), to ease depression (St. John’s wort), to aid weight loss (ephedra), to boost the memory (ginkgo biloba), and even to cure cancer (shark cartilage, bloodroot)—despite the fact that few of these “natural” supplements have been proven to be safe or effective. The vitamin and herbal supplement industry generates over $20 billion a year by selling products that promise to cure or fix, but are produced and marketed essentially without oversight. And while the media has been quick to sensationalize the benefits of supplements, few have taken a hard look at the dangers posed by many of the remedies flooding the market today. Award-winning journalist Dan Hurley breaks the silence for the first time in Natural Causes.
From the snake-oil salesmen of the early twentieth century, to rise of the health food movement in the sixties and seventies, Hurley charts the remarkable growth of an industry built largely on fraud, and reveals the backroom politics that led to the passage of the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994, which effectively freed the industry from FDA oversight. In unprecedented detail, he shows how supplement manufacturers have concealed the truth about dozens of untested treatments and the shocking rise in deaths, disfigurements, and life-threatening injuries caused by products deceptively promoted as “safe and natural.” Most importantly, he provides a telling look at why, in an age of unprecedented scientific advancement, we continue to buy and believe in remedies for which little evidence exists—and why the supplements we take to promote our health may be doing far more harm than good.
As Hurley shows, the dietary supplement craze may be one of the greatest swindles ever perpetrated on the American public—one that feeds billions of dollars each year into the pockets of lobbyists, politicians, and any charlatan who wants to slap a label on a bottle and tout it as the next big “natural cure.” Blending hard facts with spellbinding personal stories, Natural Causes is a must-read for anyone who has ever popped a multivitamin or an herb, and provides a hard-hitting, frightening look at a cultural trend that is out of control.
Natural Causes: Death, Lies and Politics in America’s Vitamin and Herbal Supplement Industry
This is a well-researched and balanced book that surveys America’s love affair with “natural” products and documents convincingly the outrageous behavior of an industry which is rife with marketing and short on science. The author provides a disturbing history of the political machinations that resulted in the legislation (DSHEA) that freed the supplement industry to market useless and unsafe products, without testing and without proof of efficacy, at enormous profit. Although many people may have honest beliefs that the supplements they take work, one cannot ignore the repeated studies that convincingly destroy the claims made by scores of supplements. Those who slam this well-researched book can be quickly identified as those making a buck off selling supplements.
Rating: 5 / 5
The real facts:
Dietary supplements are well regulated. Both the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the Federal Trade Commission can and do take action when necessary to police the market place. The Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the power to ensure dietary supplements are safe, properly labeled and that the claims they make substantiated. And because of DSHEA, a new regulation addressing good manufacturing practices for dietary supplements that ensures their quality and purity will be soon be issued.
Dietary supplements have a great safety record, especially compared with other consumer goods, such as drugs and even other foods.
Dietary supplements do work, and every week more and more scientific research upholds this fact.
Rating: 1 / 5
There a lot of good information in this book. Anyone who follows this market can obviously see the effect of complete deregulation. Even checking the labels on the few things I take revealed that claims were made that weren’t substantiated.
The history section is interesting though a bit overdone. The evidence against certain vitamins and supplements is interspersed but there is no easy way to check what you take against the book. By collecting this in one part of the book, the author could have made quick research much easier.
Rating: 4 / 5
Echinacea has lead in it; vitamins may be causing my children to have an overdosage of some vitamins. What’s amazing about this book isn’t that it’s very well written and obviously researched thoroughly, but that I never knew that the FDA doesn’t regulate supplements.
How can it be in the US that our government doesn’t view supplements as drugs? Because of DSHEA, the Dietary Supplement Health Education Act, suppliers of supplements may claim only that their products affect the function or structure of the body, but not make claims about preventing or curing disease.
My kids have been taking vitamins, echinacea for years; 1 echinacea product was found to have lead in it; is it the one that my kids took? Fortunately, I found out from Consumer Labs which tests supplements
Looking at a bottle of ‘allergy medicine,’ aka, allergy supplement, I find it has arsenic in it…called arsenicum something.
Look at your bottles of supplements very carefully; do some research yourself and I think you’ll find as I did that the truth Hurley writes about is alarming.
Our gov’t requires we wear seat belts, but turns a blind eye to us spending money on ineffective, possibly poisonous ’supplements.’ If we eat these things, they’re either foods or drugs and should be regulated. Where are you FDA?
Thanks, Dan, for not only an eye-opening read, but an enjoyable and very well-written one too!
Doug
Rating: 5 / 5
Did you know the natural products that you buy from the hippie at the health food store can permanently disable, disfigure, or kill you because they’re completely untested and unregulated?
You should. So many people are “afraid” to use prescription drugs to treat their medical conditions, and instead rely on these presumably “healthier” supplements. But often these supplements are contaminated with pesticides, heavy metals, other dangerous herbs, or are stronger or weaker than labeled. In addition, the vast majority have not been tested for safety or efficacy. Finally, the manufacturers are allowed to advertise and label these products with false or misleading claims. And the billion-dollar supplement industry has pricey lobbyists who ensure that our government keeps it that way.
Read this book, and it will provide you with the information you need to keep yourself and your family healthy–and help fight the lies spread by the wealthy, well-organized, often criminal people who make and sell supplements.
Rating: 5 / 5