More MELATONIN Misinformation from Medscape (May2022) Preying on Ignorant Doctors/Public, Fear-Mongering, Lying, Inappropriate Government Policy Manipulation to Deprive the Public of Safe Supplements

The absurd fear-mongering in this article includes tactics from The Disinformation Playbook (PDF provided below), originally published by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2017

On May 26 of 2022, the physician-miseducating pharmacracy-echoing Medscape sent an email with its own list of “Top 10 news articles read by Family Physicians last month” which included its previous misinformed article “Deprived of Sleep, Many Turn to Melatonin Despite Risks” by Laura Lillie posted on April 19 of 2022.¹ I have already dismantled this political stupidity masquerading as “concern” and “science” in a series of critiques and a video (posted early in 2022) when this new wave of melatonin witch-hunting began.

The absurd fear-mongering in this article includes tactics from The Disinformation Playbook (PDF provided below), originally published by the Union of Concerned Scientists in 2017² as a guide to fraud and deceit promulgated by corporations and their mass media misinforming mouthpieces:

1. Manufacturing uncertainty and fear when neither are appropriate; in the case of melatonin, we have 50 years (eg, Nordlund and Lerner, Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism 1977, vol45, page768) of clinical research supporting its safety and clinical use:

   1. “over-the-counter sleep aid that often is mistaken for a supplement”

   2. “specialists are questioning”

   3. “could be doing more harm than good”

   4. “new investigation launched” — The stupidity revealed by this statement is that they are referencing a medical sleep organization which should have been at the forefront of melatonin research 50 years ago; so the fact that there are only now investigating it in the year 2022 shows how completely behind-the-times they are and brings their entire organization into question.

   5. “melatonin (dubbed the "vampire hormone")” — Seriously? Do we really need to call melatonin the vampire hormone? This is stooping to the level of imbecility and childishness. This reminds me of the recent news on the so-called “murder Hornets” which was totally ridiculous and simply played on the public’s fear and ignorance of the Asian giant hornet which was “discovered” by Western entomologists more than 150 years ago (Smith, 1852).

   6. “important reasons to not use melatonin for insomnia until more information is available” — Again, this is just absurd. We’ve been using melatonin and clinical practice for at least 30 years.

   7. “And because melatonin isn't considered a drug, it doesn't require approval by the FDA and is sold over the counter.” — This is another logical fallacy because the FDA is increasingly regarded as an incompetent organization and has certainly given its approval to many drugs which are worthless, overly expensive, and murderously dangerous.

2. Buying credibility: using scientific credibility of academic institutions and professional societies to push corporate agendas

   1. “Researchers from the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, tested 30 commercially available formulas and found the melatonin content varied from the ingredients labeled on the bottles by more than 10%.” — I already reviewed the research that they are citing and showed how it was completely absurd to be used for this purpose.

   2. “A new investigation launched by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine” — Apparently this organization is asleep at the wheel [pun intended] so I can’t give them any credibility if they’re just now looking into this.

   3. “they also identified another chemical messenger called serotonin. …adding serotonin in unknown amounts could be unhealthy.” — I already showed what complete scientific misinformation is being spouted here. They are lying. We know they’re lying. But they keep lying.

   4. “Serotonin can influence the heart, blood vessels, and brain, so it's not something Rishi wants to see people taking without paying attention.” — This statement is completely idiotic and shows that the specialist they’ve chosen to interview is completely ignorant on this topic.

   5. “Muhammad Adeel Rishi, MD, vice chair of the Public Safety Committee for the American Academy of Sleep Medicine” — According to the quotes provided in this article, this guy doesn’t know anything about this topic.

3. Manipulating government officials: inappropriately influencing

   policymakers with money and misinformation

   1. “Melatonin will probably need to be regulated by the FDA as a medication – especially for children – Rishi points out.” — This is the same disinformation playbook that they use all the time: they create unnecessary fear, the use bad research, and they just try to scare the public away from using nutritional supplements and then they try to scare the politicians into taking some absurd action in the name of so-called public health and public safety which ultimately deprives the public of the nutritional supplements they could use in a safe manner to protect their health.

The only semi-accurate statement I found in this article is the following: “While short-term melatonin use is considered safe, the researchers report, concerns that long-term use might delay children's sexual maturation require more study.” We have legitimately had this concern for many years, and I don’t know if it’s been adequately addressed by this time. I actually assume that it has been addressed and that we have clinical data by now. Certainly melatonin has been used in acute situations such as life-threatening infections in the treatment of children; but in these studies the supplementation only lasted for a few days so wouldn’t be expected to have any major impact on growth and development. Again, other studies may have been published but I just am not aware of them at this moment.

Dysinformation Playbook

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I have already dismantled this political stupidity masquarading as “concern” and “science” in a series of critiques and a video posted in early 2022 when this new wave of melatonin witch-hunting began:

Part 1: MELATONIN must be good if it is being attacked by CNN and the American Medical Association

• Part 1: I had been thinking about melatonin with regard to patient care and some new research when I noticed a new smear campaign by the American Medical Association and CNN recently.

Part 2: AMA+CNN=Miseducating Medics and the Masses by Misrepresenting Melatonin

• Part 2: The American Medical Association post on social media was a combination of direct misinformation along with a hyperlink to the article published by CNN which of course glorified in a reciprocal manner a recent publication by the American Medical Association. CNN repeats what the AMA published in its journal JAMA, and AMA reciprocates by guiding traffic to the CNN website. Like one hand washing the other, in the same dirty water.

Part 3: Critical reading of "Using melatonin for sleep is on the rise despite potential health harms" published by CNN on Feb1 2022 and promoted by American Medical Association

• Part 3: Critical reading of the CNN hack piece shows it to be intellectually and informationally vacuous (empty), loaded with juvenile innuendos and unfounded accusations that would never pass muster in any good high school grammar/writing class or undergraduate journalism course.

Part 4: CNN and A.M.A. fail at math, science, and logic when attacking Melatonin

• Part 4: CNN and the A.M.A. want you to be afraid of melatonin supplements because they contain up to 75 micrograms of serotonin but they ignore the fact that many foods naturally contain serotonin and that any reasonable person could easily consume more than 3,000 micrograms of serotonin in natural foods such as nuts or tomatoes. Furthermore, both CNN and the A.M.A. are preying on the ignorance of their audiences (general public and medical doctors) to not know that orally consumed serotonin is unlikely to reach the brain in significant amounts. Check out the arguments and math in this article to see that CNN and the A.M.A. are lying to the public, politicians, and policy-makers!

Part 5: Melatonin on Thrombosis, Sepsis and Mortality Rate in COVID-19 Patients published in International Journal of Infectious Diseases 2021 (online) and 2022 (printed)

• Part 5: The safety and effectiveness of this intervention helps us understand the recent attacks against melatonin by CNN and the A.M.A. The dose of 10 mg is reasonable if not minimal for an acute illness. Note that this is the same dose used in infants with sepsis as I have discussed in my published antiviral protocol; obviously, dose-optimization studies need to be completed to determine the optimal dose for adults which is quite likely in the range of 40-500 mg rather than 3-10 mg.

Part 6: TUTORIAL VIDEO (45min) on Melatonin (part6), Mitochondria, Metabolism, Malignancy, and Mentoring

• Part 6: Quick-and-powerful video explanation of melatonin’s mechanism of action in major clinical diseases

MELATONIN

1. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/972397

2. https://www.ucsusa.org/resources/disinformation-playbook