SEE VIDEO EMBEDDED ABOVE: IT IS 70seconds of DISINFORMATION that required 52minutes of ANALYSIS
This addendum is being added to my analysis of “Hidden Dangers of Vitamins and Supplements” posted last week in FEBUARY 2024 perhaps as a distraction away from other news of healthcare importance:
SOURCES OF VIDEO CLIP EXCERPTED
Original at cbsnews.com/news/how-independent-are-vaccine-defenders 2008
From the official CBS channel posted July 25, 2008 (archived on other channels)
NOTES WITH CITATIONS
1. Nonstop demonization of the nutritional supplement industry supported by small examples, hearsay, innuendo, anecdote, and pseudoexperts with little/zero actual expertise in nutrition.
2. Paradoxically using drug/vaccine advocates who represent one of the most dangerous industries and product-lines in existence to attack the nutrition industry with product ingredients categorized as GRAS—Generally Recognized as Safe.
3. Off-it provides no evidence for his statement that doses higher than "recommended dose" are dangerous; he also repeatedly fails to demonstrate any nuanced knowledge of the topic of nutrition.
4. The PBS pseudojournalist never asks her pharma dolts for evidence, thereby keeping this psuedoreporting horribly slanted and biased. This PBS program “Frontline” receives major funding from drug-pushing organizations.
5. Off-it states that diet is sufficient but fails to note that 70% of the American diet is UPF—ultraprocessed food, which means he's magically thinking that most nutritional needs are going to be met by that remaining 30% of food that is actually somewhat more real, despite transport, storage, cooking, freezing, pesticides, soil depletion, etc.
Ultra-processed food consumption grew from 53.5 percent of calories in the beginning of the period studied (2001-2002) to 57 percent at the end (2017-2018). The intake of ready-to-eat or heat meals, like frozen dinners, increased the most, while the intake of some sugary foods and drinks declined. In contrast, the consumption of whole foods decreased from 32.7 percent to 27.4 percent of calories, mostly due to people eating less meat and dairy. nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2021/october/ultra-processed-foods.html
6. Off-it states that multivitamins increase risk for cancer and cardiovascular disease; he demonstrates zero knowledge of the nuance of the studies and how they used (for example) synthetic and harmful forms of vitamins to produce paradoxical effects, eg, folic acid instead of folinate, synthetic beta-carotene, DL/alpha-tocopherol, false placebo such as in the fish oil studies, etc.
Nearly all of the studies Off-it is citing in 2016 were published and had already been debunked at least ~20 years earlier when I studied nutrition at Bastyr University in ~1997; this shows how out-of-date and inaccurate are his perspectives.
7. Off-it employs the “nature fallacy” stating that humans should not bypass the stomach/satiety level which he states determines the limit of nutrient intake; he also states that sufficient nutrients are obtained from the American diet—according to this illogic: nutritional deficiencies can’t exist (if one is eating to fullness/satiety) and likewise obesity cannot result from overeating because—according to Off-it—the stomach/satiety level which he states determines the limit of nutrient intake.
In an act of bewildering hypocrisy coming from a reckless vaccine advocate who has stated that infants can tolerate “10,000 vaccines at once”, Off-it states that “you’re not supposed to go against nature” because “it is a dangerous thing to do.”
“Then there's Paul Off-it, perhaps the most widely-quoted defender of vaccine safety. He's gone so far as to say babies can tolerate "10,000 vaccines at once." This is how Off-it described himself in a previous interview: "I'm the chief of infectious disease at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and a professor of pediatrics at Penn's medical school," he said. Off-it was not willing to be interviewed on this subject but like others in this CBS News investigation, he has strong industry ties. In fact, he's a vaccine industry insider. Off-it holds in a $1.5 million dollar research chair at Children's Hospital, funded by Merck. He holds the patent on an anti-diarrhea vaccine he developed with Merck, Rotateq, which has prevented thousands of hospitalizations. And future royalties for the vaccine were just sold for $182 million cash. Dr. Off-it's share of vaccine profits? Unknown. cbsnews.com/news/how-independent-are-vaccine-defenders/
8. The absolutely stupid argument presented in this docudrama is that nutritional need—presumably in any and all circumstances because they offer no exceptions—is determined solely by stomach size and subjective satiety; if this were true, then a person would have all nutritional needs (for vitamins, minerals, protein, fiber, phytochemicals) met by eating cookies and icecream with an occasional hotdog as neither the pseudojournalist nor the anointed expert Off-it offer any conditions or exceptions for food intake.
9. Off-it and PBS try to attack vitamin E supplementation by stating that to attain 1000 IU of vitamin E, one would have to eat 1600 almonds. Their choice of 1000 units of vitamin E has no basis and was apparently chosen randomly; this is false and a misrepresentation of the routine clinical practice of nutritional supplementation by professionals. This is a strawman fallacy of intentionally misrepresenting the opposing view in order to create the feeling or self-delusion that one has successfully surmounted the opposing view.
10. Off-it opines in 2016 that "If you take vitamin E as a supplement, then you clearly and definitively increase your risk of prostate cancer" and that vitamin E should have a "black box warning" but a recent meta-analysis proves him wrong:
"The association between dietary (RR = 0.97) and supplemental (RR = 0.99) vitamin E intake on prostate cancer risk was non-significant. In subgroup analyses, supplemental vitamin E was significantly associated with reduced prostate cancer risk in studies in Europe (RR = 0.81)." Nutrients 2023 Jan
11. Off-it’s paradoxes and fallacies center around his self-serving selective use of positioning his argument on whatever serves him in the moment; when he wants to refute “nature” and push vaccines in a reckless manner then he states that babies can tolerate “10,000 vaccines at once” which would be 100% fatal simply per volume overload not to mention the inflammatory response that would cause sepsis/shock. When he wants to refute nutritional supplementation, he employs the “nature” argument to state that any random diet will meet 100% of nutritional needs per stomach capacity and subjective satiety.
12. Off-it commits a category error when he attempts to equate 1) dietary intake and satiety defined by casual observation with 2) safety and efficacy of nutritional supplements defined by controlled clinical trials.
13. Off-it fails to demonstrate any knowledge of clinical trials showing the safety and efficacy of nutritional supplementation, eg,
