Prepare for the next media assault

Nutritional supplementation made headlines in the popular press at the beginning of this year. Those headlines might have scared your patients.

The first story was a controversial two-part series run by the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. The series was based on the book, Natural Causes: Death, Lies and Politics in American's Vitamin and Herbal Supplement Industry, written by investigative reporter Dan Hurley.

Hurley's book purports that more than 1.6 million people have reported adverse reactions to vitamins, herbs, and other dietary supplements since 1983.

The second story was published the day after the CBS story (possibly as "catch-up" journalism), on MSNBC.com, Yahoo News, and other news sources. MSNBC's article was headlined, "A vitamin a day may do more harm than good."

The story cited a Consumerlab.com report on the quality of 21 brands of multivitamins. Only 10 of the vitamins tested by independent laboratories met the stated claims on their labels or satisfied other quality standards.

If ever there has been an opportunity to talk with your patients about the benefit of physician-grade supplements, those two news stories provided it. I hope you took advantage of them to educate your patients.

If you run a nutrition chiropractic practice, those stories also offered an opportunity to present yourself as an expert to the press. Although each of the stories garnered opposing viewpoints from nationally recognized experts, the media like to add a local flavor to these types of news stories.

As much as we would like to think that assaults on nutritional supplements and chiropractic are things of the past, we know better. Therefore, now is the time to cultivate those relationships with the press and to have at hand information you can use to educate the media as well as your patients.

In this issue, we asked the manufacturers of physician-grade supplements to offer their advice on how to use negative news to your (and your patients') benefit. I hope you'll take to heart what they have to say.

We also offer our annual roundup of new and improved nutritional supplements, as well as other information to help you in your nutrition chiropractic practice.

Until next time,

Linda Segall, Editor-in-Chief