NCAHF Newsletter articles from November 1994

NCAHF Newsletter archives from November 1994

The new dietary supplements law. (Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act)
November 1, 1994... President Clinton signed into law the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA) on 10/25/94. The compromise legislation is being assessed as a win-loss for consumers and trade associations. One report says that the supplement lobby...

Quack cancer remedy may explain fumes mystery. (investigation of Gloria Ramirez toxic blood incident)
November 1, 1994... On Feb 19 Gloria Ramirez died in the emergency room of Riverside General Hospital (RGH). The incident received national attention because a syringe of Ramirez's blood emitted an ammonialike odor that caused nurse Susan Kane to faint. Senior...

California disciplines chelation therapy MD. (Arne L. Klepp)
November 1, 1994... The Medical Board of California has disciplined Arne L. Klepp, MD, for gross negligence and unprofessional conduct. Among the acts for which Klepp was disciplined were use of chelation therapy to treat peripheral vascular disease, failure to...

Health textbook assailed for promoting quackery. (Holt Health)
November 1, 1994... Holt Health, a health education textbook published by Holt, Rinehart, Winston (1994) has been accused of explicitly endorsing "superstitions and magical rubbish," and depicting such as an equivalent alternative to scientific medicine by...

"Alternative" lecture ends in near-riot. (lecture on treatment of attention deficit disorder)
November 1, 1994... Police were called to restore order at a Hamilton, Ontario Inn where a selfproclaimed expert was advancing her drug-free treatment for Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). Sandra Starr, who uses the title "doctor" on the basis of a...

Harm by herbal remedies largely hidden.
November 1, 1994... Although an increasing number of reports of harm associated with using herbal remedies are being seen, we are seeing just the tip of the iceberg. An example of how difficult it can be to discover the harm of herbal products can be seen in the...

Upjohn fined for bribing pharmacists.
November 1, 1994... Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III obtained a $675,000 settlement with the Upjohn Company in which it will no longer pay pharmacists to switch diabetics from its old prescription drug Micronase to its new product Glycase PresTab....

Therapeutic Touch under withering scrutiny.
November 1, 1994... Therapeutic Touch (TT) was spreading through the nursing profession unimpeded until the Rocky Mountain Skeptics (RMS) challenged its use on scientific grounds. When the Colorado Nursing Board (CNB) failed to act, the RMS went to the press....

Pycnogenol. (pine tree derivative)
November 1, 1994... Kaire International, a Colorado-based multilevel marketing company, is hawking Pycnogenol, a trademarked pine tree derivative. Kaire's brochure contains unfounded scare tactics, anti-intellectualism, questionable historical information,...

Searching for Magic Bullets: Orphan Drugs, Consumer Activism, and Pharmaceutical Development.
November 1, 1994... Searching For Magic Bullets: Orphan Drugs, Consumer Activism, and Pharmaceutical Development (Haworth, 1994, 240 pp) describes the historical development of the drug approval process in the USA, including drug research and marketing;...

DDS fined for perjury. (dentist Owen J. Rogal)(adapted from the Philadelphia Inquirer, September 30, 1994)
November 1, 1994... In 1989 ABC News 20/20 aired "The Biting Pain" which focused upon abuses by dentists who over diagnose and/or mistreat TMJ (jaw joint and muscle pain) problems. Center City, PA dentist Owen J. Rogal, who had diagnosed TMJ disorders in...