Vitamins and minerals dangerous?  Thsi revelation had to be found and pushed, by order of Codex alimentarius.

If you have not heard of Codex (they try to keep a very low profile), this is the non-elected arm of the WHO and the (intended) One World Government that is planning to regulate vitamins and minerals to derisory levels, world-wide, by 31st December 2009.  This is fact, not fiction.  Do your homework.  They have almost succeeded in Europe.  The last step in the procedure will be ratified in S Africa this year.  

The long-term aim is weakening of the immune system (with the aid of airplane-spread) chemtrails - look it up on the internet.  Together with drugs it will enable control and diminution of world population within a few years.  It is said that the final world population will be between 500,million and 1 billion.

With the intended spread of GMO's and forbidding of all labelling on food and natural medicine (organic, GMO, additives etc) we will not know what we are eating. This has already started with the forbdding of advice on the use or prescription of herbal remedies.  Just the name may be shown.

Airborne pollutants from 'chemtrails' (look them up) are already causing massive cases of childhood asthma and other related respiratory diseases.

This is not meant to be 'scaremongering' but an attempt to alert people to what is going on.  It can be stopped by a massive ground-swell of determined insistence on our rights to herbs and supplements powerful enough to work, organic food, clean air and water, the right to grow our own and be self-sufficient if we choose.  These are all under threat at this moment in time.  'Zeitgeist' is a good free DVD down-loadable from the internet to start with.  There are many more.  Banning of supplements by 'proving' they are dangerous is the tip of the iceberg.

"Of course, the discarded 16,043 papers discovered the very reverse."

So... you've read the 16,043 discarded papers then? Did they really all 'discover the reverse'?

"So, the researchers were left with 1,201 papers that covered 815 separate clinical trials.  Of these, a further 747 were rejected because nobody died during the course of the study."

The researchers were looking at mortality, yet you criticise them for only including trials that contain mortality data.

For more on the Bjelakovic Meta-Analysis and the responses of the vitamin lobbyists, you could do worse than click on one of these links:

http://holfordwatch.info/2008/04/17/patrick-holford-and-contriving-a-controversy-the-cochrane-review-of-antioxidant-supplements/

http://holfordwatch.info/2008/04/16/patrick-holford-and-his-own-reality-part-2-estimating-risk-bias-in-cochrane-reviews/

jdc,

You are twisting what the has been said about the Cochrane study. The media touted that Vitamins A, C and D reduce the lifespan of people. To proof this, one has to take all the studies into account and not just studies showing some mortality. All studies which have been conducted on the use of Vitamin A, C and E must be included.

So, to translate this for people like you who have some problems thinking logically.

Let's imagine there are 100 people. All of them take high doses of Vitamin A,C and E. You want to find out the mortality rate due to the usage of such Vitamins.

96 people (96%) have used high doses of A,C and E for 10 years and are healthy.

4 people (4%) have used high doses of A,C and E for 10 years and are ill. Out of those 4, 1 (1%) dies.

The fact is that there is a 1% mortality rate.

The methodology behind the Cochrane study is: Exclude the 96 healthy people on high doses of A,C and E for 10 years, and just focus on the 4 people who are ill.

Since 1 person has died, the mortality rate is then 25%. Fact is that the mortality rate is 25% amongst sick people whereas it is only 1% amongst healthy and sick people combined. Besides that, the death of the one person might not even be due to the Vitamins but because they were sick.

Get it? The Cochrane study is junk science. It is fraud. I have studied statistics at university and we frequently had the task to show opposite results using the same set of data. It is easy. All one needs to do is to redefine what the outcome has to show and whoops, one can exclude all the data which are undesireable for the outcome. There are many other much more mathematical ways to temper with the data but this would exceed your capacity.

Learn about chemtrails, read the book "Wallstreet and the rise of Hitler" from Anthony C. Sutton and you will learn a lot about big pharma. Do the world a favour and educate yourself before posting such nonsense.

Brandon

I think you're misunderstanding the whole concept of the scientific method and meta analysis in general:

"All studies which have been conducted on the use of Vitamin A, C and E must be included. "

Even the ones with bias or other methodological flaws?

anyway...

On reading the rest of your comment it strikes me that you probably haven't read the report at all and have missed the paper's multiple comparisons of mortality rates between different populations

"The methodology behind the Cochrane study is: Exclude the 96 healthy people on high doses of A,C and E for 10 years, and just focus on the 4 people who are ill. "

Oh dear:

In *primary prevention trials with low-bias risk, mortality was not significantly increased in the supplemented group in random-effects analysis (RR 1.05, 95% CI 0.98 to 1.12, P = 0.18), but significantly increased in a fixed-effect analysis (RR 1.06, 95% CI 1.04 to 1.10, P < 0.0001) with significant heterogeneity (I2 = 46.9%).

In primary prevention trials with high-bias risk, mortality was not significantly influenced by supplements (RR 0.95, 95% CI 0.85 to 1.06, P = 0.33, I2 = 0%).

In secondary prevention trials with low-bias risk, mortality tended to be increased in the supplemented group (RR 1.03, 95% CI 0.98 to 1.08, P = 0.20, I2 = 0%).

In secondary prevention trials with high-bias risk, mortality was significantly reduced by supplements (RR 0.89, 95% CI 0.80 to 1.00, P = 0.04) without significant heterogeneity (I2 = 25.5%).

*healthy participants (primary prevention trials) or participants with various diseases (secondary prevention trials).

Interesting discussion. I agree with Brandon about statistics being used to prove anything - as Mark Twain said "Lies, damned lies and statistics".

I also find it fascinating that there are lots of people going out of their way to prove that natural health supplements and vitamins are potentially harmful! We know how dangerous pharmaceuticals are - tens of thousands of people die every year from the side effects, I personally know lots of people whose health has been wrecked by conventional medicine and drugs.

We all know what makes us feel better and what makes us feel worse - if we were all to listen to our bodies and our instincts we would be likely to be much healthier. So many people I see tell me that they tried to tell their GP what they thought the problem was about and almost all are told they know nothing! Our subconscious mind knows - and we can tap into that intelligence. The world works the way it does - science attempts to quantify and explain - I would rather trust the world and my instincts than science any day!! The old right-left brain argument again - we need them both and neither is better, just different.