Minutus

Dana,

This would make a great starting point for an op-ed. Do you remember how the FDA spun the story of contaminated L-tryptophan back in the 90s? Rather than 'fessing up that the problem resulted from genetically-engineered bacteria used by Showa Denko to manufacture its L-tryptophan, the FDA made it sound as if the problem resulted entirely from its lack of power to control supplements. (Of course, the truth is it's the FDA's failure to regulate genetic engineering that's the real problem.)

Is Hurley playing stalking horse for another assault on supplements? If so, who's behind him? And why is the NYT doing such a deplorable job of checking their stories for bias? You'd think they'd have learned something from the Judith Miller fiasco!

Peace,
Da;e

Good riposte Dana!



Simon
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Dear Dana,

I posted the information, because this was an information for American
doctors, officially spread by an info-service from the NEJM.

I found Dan Hurley's article interesting, I posted the link to the NYT,
and I posted the link where the original report could be checked, so
everyone had access to the PRIMARY information, and could check it for
reliability.
Sorry, Dana, if you read the report carefully, you can see that they
differentiate between *information calls* and *exposure calls*.

Exposure calls in 2005 were
- 2,424,180
and there were
- 1,400,904 information calls
Definition from the text:

Information (Non-exposure) Calls to Poison Centers
Data from 1,400,904 information calls reported to PCCs in
2005 was transmitted to the AAPCC database, including
376,040 calls coded in optional reporting categories such as
administrative, immediate referral, and prevention/safety/education
(Table 1B). Information calls are not required to be
recorded by PCCs and may be reported inconsistently. Overall,
the volume of information calls handled by U.S. PCCs
increased 9.5% from 2004 to 2005.

------------------------

Information in the AAPCC's database is dynamic, with follow-
up calls and updated information allowing for changes in
coding of some cases over time. The information reported in
this article reflects only those cases classified as:

- exposure calls (non-administrative, non-information
calls; the caller was concerned about an exposure to a
substance)
- having occurred in humans (no animal species)
- where the call status has been deemed closed (the
PCC has determined no further information is available
or no further follow-up/recommendations will be
made). Most calls are closed within the first few
hours; some calls about patients admitted to hospitals
remain open for weeks or months depending on the
particulars of a case.

Here you mixed the numbers from the information and exposure call
tables.

p. 908: gives the exposures of Dietary supplement/homeopathic:unknown:
2298
(The known homoeopathic exposures are 7049, see below).

p. 807 gives the no. of *information* calls for Dietary supplement,
herbal, and homeopathic: 1779

That's correct from the table.

OK, here's in detail what it says (but everyone here can download the
report and check it):

Homeopathic
7,049 No. of exposures (Total)

Age:
6,332 19

Reason:
6,686 Unintentional
178 Intentional
1 Other
178 Adverse reaction

Treated in health care facility
564

Outcome:
1,930 None
192 Minor
66 Moderate
7 Major
2 Death
That's what the table says.
Anyone who is interested or has doubts can check that, and probably mail
them and ask about the 2 deaths.
-----------------
Remark:
I'm sure their classification of homoeopathic is a very wide one, not
necessarily what homoeopaths would regard as homoeopathic.

---------

I can see NO lies so far.

Please check ***meticulously*** the records before stating something
like that!

There are open questions, of course, especially concerning definitions.
But I can see NO errors in these numbers of the cases, exposures etc.
(of course I checked only the parts of the tables concerning
homeopathy).

Best,

Gaby

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Gaby Rottler
Germany
rottler@curantur.de
http://www.curantur.de
***Scriptum homoeopathicum***
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~