Obama Administration, Congress Intensify Opposition To Global Generic Drug Industry

[Seshmeister]

The guy is such an obvious sleezy conman.

What proper medical professional would turn around like he does in that video and say that most Americans are going to suffer a stroke?

Only 5% of Americans ever have a stroke at any time in their lives and actually it's not getting worse it's down 16% in the last 10 years(probably due to people smoking less).

[Seshmeister]

OK... I'm a little confused here....

This guy who's in the Alex Jones video above is a pharmacist who is against Big Pharma?

That's more bizzare than the pharmacists who spend years going to school so they can refuse to fill birth control prescriptions on religious grounds.

I could never be a pharmacist because I *DO* oppose Big Pharma a good percentage of the time. How does this Ben guy keep his job?

He works for a company selling health supplements via Alex Jones media. Youngevity which is a snake oil company owned by a vet called Wallach.

[Seshmeister]

This guy explains a bit about how they work.

http://nutra-smart.net/al.htm#todaytonight

It's a snake oil pyramid selling scam.

[FORD]

Pyramid scams in general are just fucking evil. I've had friends try to drag me into them a couple times.... and then had to try really hard to restrain myself from laughing in their faces when they not only didn't get rich, but lost a significant amount of money.

And even the successful pyramid scams, such as Amway, eventually lead to even greater evils, such as BlacKKKwater. (seriously, it's the same goddamned family)

As far as this guy's health advice, I generally agree that nutrition is best at preventitive medicine and in some cases, even at reversing or healing damage done, he's way off the charts if he says salt doesn't cause high blood pressure. I've seen the results of that personally.

[Seshmeister]

http://skepdic.com/wallach.html

Joel D. Wallach, the "mineral doctor"

Joel D. Wallach, M.S., D.V.M. (University of Missouri) and N.D. (National College of Naturopathic Medicine) is a veterinarian and naturopath who claims (in a widely distributed audio tape entitled "Dead Doctors Don't Lie") that all diseases are due to mineral deficiencies, that everyone who dies of natural causes dies because of mineral deficiencies,* and that just about anyone can live more than one hundred years if they take daily supplements of colloidal minerals harvested from pits in Utah.

Wallach claims that minerals in foods and most supplements are "metallic" and not as effective as "plant-based" colloidal minerals, which is nonsense because colloidal minerals are also "metallic," i.e., contain trace amounts of aluminum and heavy metals. Being colloidal has more to do with the origin, size, and structure of the mineral particles that with their effectiveness. (A colloid is "a substance that consists of particles dispersed throughout another substance which are too small for resolution with an ordinary light microscope but are incapable of passing through a semipermeable membrane." --Merriam-Webster)

Wallach learned all this from living on a farm, working with Marlin Perkins (of Mutual of Omaha's "Wild Kingdom" fame), doing necropsies on animals and humans, reading stories in National Geographic magazine, and reading the 1934 novel by James Hilton, The Lost Horizon. He certainly didn't learn any of it from science texts.

Dr. Wallach makes his claims about minerals despite the fact that in 1993 a research team from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, Georgia, reported the results of a 13-year study on 10,758 Americans which failed to find any mortality benefits from vitamin and mineral supplements. The study found that even though supplement users smoke and drink less than non-users, eat more fruits and vegetables than non-users, and are more affluent than non-users, they didn't live any longer than non-users. The study also found no benefit from taking vitamin and mineral supplements for smokers, heavy drinkers, or those which chronic diseases. In May 2006, a committee of physicians impaneled by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that little information exists as to whether people should take supplements. The previous March the NIH noted that research suggests that vitamins and other supplements may do more harm than good, and that antioxidants are of little use.* Further research has found that vitamin supplements can even be deadly.* The simple fact is that there is no compelling scientific evidence that vitamin or mineral supplements effect the health or longevity of most people. Of course, those suffering from a vitamin or mineral deficiency should take supplements, but there is no merit to Wallach's claim that most or all diseases are due to mineral deficiencies.

The basic appeal of Dr. Wallach is the hope he gives to people who fear or are mistrustful of medical doctors and scientific knowledge. He gives hope to those who want to live for a really long time. He gives hope to those who are diagnosed with diseases for which current medical knowledge has no cure. He gives hope to those who want to avoid getting a terminal disease. And he gives hope to those who want to be healthy but who do not want to diet or exercise. All we have to do is drink a magic elixir of colloidal minerals and we'll be healthy. You can't just take your minerals in pill form, he warns us. You must take the colloidal variety in liquid form. Until he had a falling out with T.J. Clark & Co., this elixir had to come from special pits in Utah. After John H. Renner, M.D., President of the National Council Against Health Fraud, exposed the "distortions, bogus science, and outright lies" in Wallach's tape, T.J. Clark & Co. "severed its business relationship with him."* Wallach then "revised his 'scientific' opinion and quickly moved on to find new partners."*

the audiotape

Dr. Wallach seems to be most famous for a widely circulated audiotape he calls "Dead Doctors Don't Lie." [It is also available in video tape and book form.] The label of the tape notes that Dr. Wallach was a Nobel Prize nominee. This is true. He was nominated for a Nobel Prize in medicine by the Association of Eclectic Physicians "for his notable and untiring work with deficiencies of the trace mineral selenium and its relationship to the congenital genesis of Cystic Fibrosis." The Association of Eclectic Physicians is a group of naturopaths founded in 1982 by two naturopathic physicians, Dr. Edward Alstat and Dr. Michael Ancharski. In his book Let's Play Doctor (co-authored with Ma Lan, M.D., M.S.) he states that cystic fibrosis is preventable, is 100% curable in the early stages, can be managed very well in chronic cases, leading to a normal life expectancy (75 years). If these claims were true, he might have won the Prize. He didn't win, but he gave a lot of false hope to parents of children with cystic fibrosis.

The basic danger of Dr. Wallach's theories is not that taking colloidal minerals will harm people, or even that many people will be wasting their money on a product they do not need. Many of his claims are not backed up with scientific control studies, but are anecdotal or fictional. The basic danger is that because he and other naturopaths exaggerate the role of minerals in good health, they may be totally ignored by the scientific community even if they happen to hit on some real connections between minerals and disease. Furthermore, there is the chance that legitimate scientific researchers may avoid this field for fear of being labeled a kook.

Dr. Wallach falsely claims that there are five cultures in the world that have average lifespans of between 120 and 140 years: the Tibetans in Western China; the Hunzas in Eastern Pakistan; the Russian Georgians and the Armenians, the Abkhasians, and the Azerbaijanis. He also mentions the people of the Vilcabamba in Ecuador, and those who live around Lake Titicaca in Peru and Bolivia. The secret of their longevity is "glacier milk," or water full of colloidal minerals. It is probably news to these people that they live so long. Dr. Wallach does not mention on what scientific data he bases his claims, but I am sure there are many anthropologists and tour book authors who would like to know about these Shangri-La havens.

The label on the "Dead Doctors Don't Lie" tape says "Learn why the average life span of an MD is only 58 years." On his tape, Dr. Wallach claims that "the average life span of an American is 75 years, but the average lifespan of an American doctor is only 58 years!" Maybe dead doctors don't lie, but this living one certainly stretches the truth. If he is telling the truth, it is not the whole truth and nothing but the truth. According to Kevin Kenward of the American Medical Association: "Based on over 210,000 records of deceased physicians, our data indicate the average life-span of a physician is 70.8 years." One wonders where Dr. Wallach got his data. The only mention in his tape of data on physician deaths is in his description of a rather gruesome hobby of his: he collects obituaries of local physicians as he takes his mineral show from town to town . He may be somewhat selective as a collector, however.

On his tape, Dr. Wallach says

...what I did was go back to school and become a physician. I finally got a license to kill (laughter), and they allowed me to use everything I had learned in veterinary school about nutrition on my human patients. And to no surprise to me, it worked. I spent 12 years up in Portland, Oregon, in general practice, and it was very fascinating.

Dr. Wallach is an N.D., a doctor of naturopathy, not an M.D. as his tape suggests. It is unlikely that most of the people in his audience know that naturopaths call themselves physicians and that there is a very big difference between an M.D. and an N.D. He also claims he did hundreds of autopsies on humans while working as a veterinarian in St. Louis. How does a veterinarian get to do human autopsies?

"Well, again, to make a long story short, over a period of some twelve years I did 17,500 autopsies on over 454 species of animals and 3,000 human beings who lived in close proximity to the zoos, and the thing I found out was this: every animal and every human being who dies of natural causes dies of a nutritional deficiency."

To accomplish this feat, he would have to do six autopsies a day, working 5 days a week for the 12 years and taking only a 2-week vacation each year. He was allegedly performing all these autopsies in addition to his other duties, and presumably while he was writing essays and books as well. Maybe all those minerals gave him superhuman powers.

an attack and a panegyric

Dr. Wallach's "Dead Doctors Don't Lie" tape is both an attack on the medical profession and a panegyric for minerals. The attack is vicious and mostly unwarranted, which weakens his credibility about the wonders of minerals. He does not come across as an objective, impersonal scientist. He delights in ridiculing "Haavaad" University and cardiologists who die young from heart attacks, many of whom went into the field because of congenital heart defects. He reverts to name calling on several occasions, as well. Doctors, he says, routinely commit many practices that would be considered illegal in other fields. At one point he claims that the average M.D. makes over $200,000 a year in kickbacks. This ludicrous claim didn't even get a peep of skeptical bewilderment from his audience. [The tape is of a live recording of one of his shows.] He sounds like a bitter, rejected oddball who is getting even with the medical profession for ignoring him and his "research."

In addition to citing his many scientific studies and years of research as proof that we need mineral supplements for good health, Dr. Wallach presents U.S. Senate document #264. This paper claims that U.S. soils are 85% depleted of essential minerals. According to Dr. Wallach, that is why we can't get enough minerals from our foods. He has further evidence, too:

...to live to be 100+ we need to consume 90 nutrients per day...60 minerals, 16 vitamins, 12 amino acids and 3 fatty acids...there are some 10 diseases associated with the lack of each of these 90 nutrients or potentially 900 diseases...the American Medical Association did a study in 1939 and came to the conclusion that it is no longer feasible to get all the vitamins we need from foods.

I wonder if the AMA has done any studies on this issue since 1939? If so, why aren't they mentioned? And why, even if mineral supplements are needed can't we buy them off the shelf of our local supermarket? Because they aren't "colloidal." He suggests at one point in his tape that minerals in pill form aren't absorbed at all; they just pass right through the body and out into the sewer lines. But why do our colloidal minerals have to come from a pit in Utah? Here is his explanation:

the only place you can get these in the United States is from a prehistoric Valley in southern Utah that, according to geologists, seventy-five million years ago had sixty to seventy-two minerals in the walls and the floor of that valley, and those trees and the grasses in that valley and that forest took up all the metallic minerals and made colloidal minerals in their tissues. About that time there was a volcanic eruption which entombed that valley with a thin layer of mud and ash, not thick enough or heavy enough to crush or pressurize this into oil or coal. It was very dry in here, so it never became fossilized or petrified. Okay. Never became rock.

Today, if you put a shaft into this valley, it's still just dried hay. It's seventy-five million year old hay, according to geologists. You can still see the grass and the leaves and the twigs and the pine cones and the bark and so forth. And we grind this plant material up into a flour, very small, particle sized flour, just like a good wheat flour and for three to four weeks we soak it in filtered spring water and when it reaches a specific gravity of 3.0, it's very heavy, it has thirty-eight grams of this colloidal mineral in it per quart or liter and by actual analysis it has sixty colloidal minerals in it. This particular product has been on the market since 1926. It's the only nutritional product on the market that has a legal consent decree from a federal court and an approval from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to be harvested and sold as a nutritional supplement. Everybody else who has a vitamin, or mineral, or what not, just follows the labeling requirements of the FDA. This is the only one that, in fact, has a federal consent decree to do it, because it passed all their tests. It's the only one that has been put to this level of test because it works.

How do we know it works? Dr. Wallach guarantees it. Or your money back! Should you trust him? Why wouldn't you trust someone who tells stories about people in China who lived to be over 250 years old or about a 137 year-old cigar-smoking woman! Of course, it is up to you to infer that they lived so long because they took colloidal minerals, though the good Dr. has enough sense not to make such a claim. In case you are still not convinced of this man's trustworthiness, let me inform you that, according to Dr. Wallach, for the past twenty years there have been cures for arthritis, diabetes and ulcers. These cures were discovered by veterinarians, who also discovered the cause of Alzheimer's disease years ago. Tell that to the millions of people suffering from these diseases.

Ellen Coleman, a registered dietician and nutrition columnist, has another view of Wallach's products: “Colloidal mineral products have not been proven safe or effective. They are not better absorbed than regular mineral supplements.” James Pontolillo, a research scientist, is concerned that colloidal mineral products may contain toxic organic compounds.* The National Nutritional Food Association says that some colloidal mineral products “contain aluminum or toxic minerals; others are high in sodium. Some do not contain detectable amounts of minerals listed on their labels. Finally, there is no evidence that colloidal minerals are more bioavailable than those found in other forms.”*

Nevertheless, Dr.Wallach has spawned a small industry of mineral sellers, including some multi-level marketing projects on the Internet.

[Seshmeister]

Dr. Wallach has been involved in biomedical research and clinical medicine for 30 years. He received his B.S. Degree from the University of Missouri with a major in animal husbandry (nutrition) and field crops; a D.V.M. (veterinarian) from the University of Missouri; a three year post doctoral fellowship from the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems, Washington University; and an N.D. from the National College of Naturopathic Medicine, Portland, Oregon.

http://www.quackwatch.com/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/Naturopathy/naturopathy.html

The National College of Naturopathic Medicine (NCNM) was founded in 1956 in Portland, Oregon, but, until the mid-1970s, had very few students. From 1960 through 1968, the average enrollment was eight and the total number of graduates was 16.

Today, within the United States, a "doctor of naturopathy" (N.D.) or "doctor of naturopathic medicine" (N.M.D.) credential is available from five full-time schools of naturopathy and several nonaccredited correspondence schools A few years ago, one correspondence school, the Progressive Universal Life Church, offered a "Ph.D. in Naturopathy" for $250 plus "life experience with no coursework and another nonaccredited school offered a "Naturopathic Practitioner" diploma to eligible individuals who completed a 15-month program of home-study plus a dozen weekend seminars. Training at the full-time schools follows a pattern similar to that of chiropractic schools: two years of basic science courses and two years of clinical work. Three years of preprofessional college work are required for admission.

[Nickdfresh]

You're just a sheep, Sesh! You don't know what you're talking about. I'm going to eat some Wal-Mart poison cheese now...

[Seshmeister]

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/DSH/colloidalminerals.html

John H. Renner, M.D., President of the National Council Against Health Fraud, has accurately characterized Wallach's tape as riddled with distortions, bogus science, and outright lies [3]. The many outlandish statements Wallach has made on his tape and in public lectures include:

Since physicians have a life expectancy of only 58 years, how can you trust them with maintaining your health? Actually, physicians have a greater life expectancy (averaging 75-88 years) than the general population [12].

Mercury amalgam used in dental fillings causes multiple sclerosis. Not supported by clinical research.

Many Americans suffer from "malabsorption disease." Certain diseases exist in which people have difficulty absorbing nutrients. However, Wallach is referring to a nonexistent condition which, like the long discredited idea of autointoxication, is based on concepts that ignore scientific research on gastrointestinal tract functioning.

Cystic fibrosis is preventable and 100% curable in its early stages. This statement is completely unfounded.

Five cultures around the world have average lifespans of 120-140 years. The key to their longevity is the consumption of colloidal mineral waters ("glacier milk"). No such long-lived cultures exist.

Claims to have authored over 70 articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as several medical texts. Searchs of standard indexes have turned up only a handful of publications, nearly all of which are of dubious quality [9,10].

Claims to have performed 20,500 animal and human autopsies while working as a veterinarian in St. Louis. Even if veterinarians and naturopaths were allowed to conduct human autopsies (which they are not), Wallach would had to have performed them at a rate of 6 per day, 5 days a week, for 12 years in addition to his other duties and while authoring his numerous (though unfindable) articles.

Standard vitamins are not digested but pass out in the feces still in tablet form. An unsubstantiated anecdote.

States that 50% of 70-year-old Americans have Alzheimer's disease. The actual figure for Americans between 65-74 years of age is 3.9% [13].

Claims to have cured cases of porcine Alzheimers. Pigs don't get Alzheimer's disease.

Greying hair and facial wrinkles at any age are due to a copper deficiency. Not supported by clinical research.

Cardiomyopathy is solely the result of a selenium deficiency. Cardiomyopathy is a group of heart-muscle disorders with several different causes.

All aneurysms (over 40 different kinds) are due to a copper deficiency. Not supported by clinical research.

Male-pattern baldness is due to a tin deficiency. Not supported by clinical research.

Bell's palsy is the result of a calcium deficiency. The usual cause is compression of the facial nerve.

Diabetes and hypoglycemia are due to vanadium and chromium deficiencies. Not supported by clinical research.

Sodium consumption is unrelated to high blood pressure in humans. As evidence he notes that cows use salt licks, but don't suffer from high blood pressure. Animals use salt licks as needed. Sodium intake affects blood pressure in people who are salt-sensitive.

Periodontal disease is the result of a calcium deficiency and is not influenced by the quality of oral hygiene. Not supported by clinical research.

All low back pain is due to osteoporosis. An absurd idea; the most common causes are muscle and ligament strains from overexertion.

Metallic minerals (i.e., regular vitamins and minerals) are only 8-12% absorbable while colloidal minerals are 98% absorbable. No data support such a claim; the figures appear to have been pulled out of thin air [14].

The human body transports, stores, and uses minerals in colloidal form. This is simply not true; minerals inevitably occur either as mineral salts, compounded with proteins or lipids, or as enzymal and hormonal components.

When the extent of Wallach's misstatements became public knowledge, T.J. Clark & Co. severed its business relationship with him. Up to that time, Wallach had been claiming that only leachate from Clark's mine was effective in treating mineral deficiencies. After this falling out, however, Wallach revised his "scientific" opinion and quickly moved on to find new partners.

[Seshmeister]

Unfuckingbelievable.

Most of these anyone with any common sense whatsoever would see through immediately.

[Seshmeister]

This guys quackery goes back a long time - from 1996

http://www.ncahf.org/nl/1996/3-4.html

DEAD DOCTORS DON'T LIE!
BUT THIS LIVING VETERINARIAN DOES!

Maverick veterinarian Joel Wallach is selling video and audio tapes titled Dead Doctors Don't Lie! proclaiming that physicians have a life expectancy of only 58 years. This sends the message that doctors are so wrongheaded that they themselves live significantly shorter lives than the general population.

It is not clear where Wallach gets his data, but it is a lie. Physicians have long had life expectancies that are longer than the general population. Goodman [1] reviewed reports on physician life expectancies in 1925, 1938-42, 1949-51, and 1971. His study covered the 1971 population of 344,823 physicians, and the deaths of 19,086 from 1969 through 1973. He found that both male and female physicians had greater life expectancy than the general population.

The American Medical Association's Center For Health Care Policy published data on the life expectancies of U.S. medical graduate physicians by specialty in 1988. [2] It showed that the life expectancy of physicians is somewhere between 75 and 88, depending upon the age and gender that one chooses.

Wallach also claims to have been nominated for a Nobel Prize in 1991. According to the Nobel Committee, this would be impossible for him to know because the names of nominees are confidential. Wallach could have been "nominated" by himself or one of his admirers, but that would not make him a serious candidate. The Nobel Committee denies that Wallach has ever been a legitimate Nobel Prize nominee.

NCAHF has been aware of Wallach's activities for many years. In the early 1980s Wallach worked out of the Northcoast Naturopathic Clinic at Cannon Beach, Oregon, where he practiced as a "Manner Metabolic Physician." This designation meant that he dispensed a the unapproved cancer therapy centered around laetrile (cyanide derived from apricot pits).

In 1990, Wallach appeared as a naturopathic doctor in an advertisement for Hospital Santa Monica, a clinic in Tijuana operated by the notorious Kurt Donsbach. In 1993, NCAHF received a call from a consumer in the state of Virginia who reported that Wallach was involved in the multilevel marketing of vitamins and hydrogen peroxide.

In 1995 NCAHF received a report from a consumer in California who stated that Wallach was dispensing chelation therapy for coronary artery disease at a clinic in San Francisco. The caller was concerned because her father-in-law had died following Wallach's care. He had become very weak, but Wallach had poisoned him against returning to his regular physician, so he did not seek medical help. His wife, who is also a disciple of Wallach's ideas and health care, had the body cremated.

The mother-in-law has completed her course of chelation therapy, but still returns every 1-2 months for more. On Wallach's advice, she also ingests a "toddy mix" that looks like "muddy water" [Note: this sounds very much like a Rockland International company product called Body Toddy that was banned by the FDA due to its high levels of toxic substances [3], especially since Donsbach was associated with Rockland].

According to promotional materials, Wallach works with a Dr. MaLan who was educated in the People's Republic of China. It is not clear whether or not she is licensed to practice medicine in the United States. Since neither of his credentials as a veterinarian or a naturopath enables him to practice medicine (ie, render chelation therapy) in California, it is unclear whether he is blatantly disregarding the law, or is operating under Dr. MaLan's medical license (if she has one). The mother-in-law seems to be a victim beyond help. She has a diploma from Donsbach University and sold Sunrider products for a while. She quit when she heard about lawsuits against Sunrider, fearing that she might be named as a defendant.

[ELVIS]

You're just a sheep, Sesh! You don't know what you're talking about.

He clearly doesn't...

Of course there's articles designed to discredit Dr Wallach...

Sesh posted the exact same bullshit last time I mentioned him...

Fuck ya'll old drunk and dying fucks...

[Seshmeister]

Beyond stupid.

[ELVIS]

You're a fucking joke...

[jhale667]

I'm a fucking joke...

Fixed.

[Seshmeister]

He clearly doesn't...

Of course there's articles designed to discredit Dr Wallach...