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Some natural products companies now engaging in consumer fraud over heavy metals found in their products
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
by
Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
(NaturalNews) Perhaps I shouldn't be so easily amused, but I can hardly
stop laughing at the theatrical attempts by some people in the natural
products industry to convince their customers that eating heavy metals
is good for you. Granted, most companies in the natural health space are
very ethical and responsible. They are becoming more and more aware of
the heavy metals issue in their products and they are taking steps right
now to source cleaner materials and provide more transparency to
customers. But some companies are still in a state of total denial over
heavy metals. In the aftermath of my own
science-based findings of significant concentrations of heavy metals
in popular "superfood" products, some of these companies are now
attempting to push sheer delusions onto their own customers, claiming
that heavy metals are good for you.
It all sounds almost exactly
like vaccine companies -- "Mercury in flu shots improves brain
performance!" -- or biotech firms like Monsanto who say "GMOs and
glyphosate are harmless! Eat more!"
And yet, as I'm sure you will agree, the strange idea that heavy metals are safe to eat (apparently at any dose) is
wholly inconsistent with the core principles and beliefs of health-conscious consumers. The very basis of the entire organic industry, natural products industry and superfoods industry is that
it DOES matter what you eat!
Pseudoscience excuses
What
we're really finding is that the issue of heavy metals is rapidly
separating genuine health-conscious industry leaders from the hucksters
who hope you can be manipulated into eating more of their products that
contain lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium.
They've got all sorts of bizarre, pseudoscientific arguments for denying the harm of
heavy metals.
One person whose products contain heavy metals is now publicly claiming
that heavy metals are trace minerals that your body needs. I'm even
wondering if he will soon come out with a "Heavy Metals Vitamin" product
so you can meet your daily requirement for lead and mercury. It starts
to sound a lot like the "energy-boosting radiation pills" sold by
charlatans in the early 20th century.
Another argument organized by one particular industry group claims that you can eat all the heavy
metals
you want because your body doesn't absorb them anyway. Somehow, your
body absorbs iron, zinc, manganese, magnesium, calcium and copper, but
according to these people, your body magically and selectively does not
absorb all the "bad metals" which are found in their own
products.
By
what digestive miracle such selective absorption takes place is never
explained, of course. Perhaps selective absorption is invoked with a
magic wand waved over the contaminated food before consuming it.
How can concentration not matter?
Another
central argument from the heavy metals deniers is that concentrations
don't matter. If 50 ppb of a heavy metal is considered safe, then 500
ppb or even 5,000 ppb must also be safe too, they ridiculously argue.
Such a position is, of course, complete nonsense. Concentration is
the single most important factor in determining toxicity for an element or chemical. The higher the concentration of a toxic element, the greater the risk of harm.
This is especially true considering the massive quantities of superfoods or
natural
products which are regularly consumed by millions of consumers. In the
popular category of proteins, a typical one-scoop serving is 23 grams.
Some readers told us on Facebook that they would eat
six scoops a day. If the protein they are eating happens to contain just 2 ppm cadmium, 0.5 ppm lead and 10 ppm tungsten, this means their
daily intake of these metals is:
• 276 micrograms of cadmium
• 69 micrograms of lead
• 1,380 micrograms of tungsten
To
argue that the routine consumption of these levels of heavy metals has
no health consequence whatsoever is beyond irresponsible. It is
fraudulent, and it smacks of precisely the kind of quackery the
scientific skeptics routinely accuse natural products companies of
practicing.
In part, they are actually correct. There is
unfortunately some level of fraud in the natural products industry just
like you find in the pharmaceutical industry, vaccine industry and the
dog food industry. At the same time, there are also ethical, responsible
companies who go to tremendous lengths to ensure the purity and safety
of their products. In fact, I've gone out of my way to publicize the
really clean products we've tested such as
One World Whey proteins from Synergistic Nutrition as well as all the
incredibly clean iodine products across many brands.
So
the argument that heavy metals don't matter in natural products is
immediately devoid of any ethical or scientific standing. Of course
heavy metals matter. If Brand A of chocolate chips contains 1000 ppb
lead, while Brand B chocolate chips contain no lead (but are otherwise
equivalent), which brand is safer for your children to consume on a
regular basis? The obvious and correct answer is Brand B.
Reducing exposure to dietary toxins is always the right choice.
And personally, I would really question the ethics and even the
scientific grasp of anyone who argues that reducing exposure to dietary
toxins doesn't matter in the least.
In
this Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2015 photo, Genetha Campbell carries free water
being distributed at the Lincoln Park United Methodist Church in Flint,
Mich, Since the financially struggling city broke away from the Detroit
water system last year, residents have been unhappy with the smell,
taste and appearance of water from the city’s river as they await the
completion of a pipe to Lake Huron. They also have raised health
concerns, reporting rashes, hair loss and other problems. A General
Motors plant stopped using the water, saying it was rusting its parts.
(AP Photo/Paul Sancya) 
