From One Click

FDA Food Supplements Deaths Claims Are False

(OMNS, October 9, 2008) "Dietary supplements cause 600 'adverse events'", reported USA Today on 22 Sept, 2008. The FDA refused to disclose exactly which supplements allegedly were causing problems. According to national statistics compiled by the authoritative American Association of Poison Control Centers, there is not even one death per year from vitamins. By comparison, FDA acknowledges that prescription drugs resulted in 482,154 adverse-event reports in the year 2007.
Press Release, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service

* * *

Speaking strictly for myself, I've had a lot of adverse reactions to prescription drugs.  The worst that ever happened with vitamins was when they were touting Niacin for pain relief, I took enough to cause something resembling a hot flash.

Most vitamins list the ingredients on the side, so if you're allergic to soy, wheat, dairy, etc., you can pick a brand you won't react to.  Who knows what's in prescription drugs?  They usually won't tell you. 

There's one family of drugs where I had a bad reaction to one and was told by that doctor and several pharmacists to never again take anything in that family.  I've at least twice been given prescriptions for other drugs in that family; the first one, I didn't notice before leaving the doctor's office and the pharmacist flatly refused to fill it.  The second time, I did notice, and the doctor repeatedly insisted "it'll be fine" because he couldn't be bothered to change the prescription.  Two days later, I showed that prescription to a doctor I trusted, who asked "are they trying to kill you?" and told me that the only way I was to take that medication was in a medical facility with the correct high-tech equipment to save my life -- the second reaction is often worse than the first.

So why did I get those subsequent prescriptions?  Either because the doctor wasn't aware that those drugs "react as a class" or because he was too lazy to wrack his brain to think of something else that would work besides the one he always prescribes.  And, in fact, the drugs that actually helped me not only weren't in that family, but weren't even intended for the same purpose -- I did not need anti-depressants because I wasn't depressed, I needed either sleeping pills and/or pain pills so that I could SLEEP.