FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, January 15, 2010
NLM Censors Nutritional Research
Medline is Biased, and Taxpayers Pay for It
Comment by Andrew W. Saul
Editor-In-Chief, Orthomolecular Medicine News Service
(OMNS, January 15, 2010) Did you know that there are “good” medical journals, and that there are “naughty” medical journals?
No kidding. The good journals are easy to access on the internet through a huge electronic database called Medline This wonderful, free service is brought to you by the US National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health. In other words, by you. By your tax dollars. Generally it is money well spent, until you go searching for megavitamin therapy research papers. Then you will find that you can’t find all of them. That is because of selective indexing.
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) proudly describes itself as “the largest medical library in the world. The goal of the NLM is to collect, organize and make available biomedical literature to advance medical science
and improve public health.”
Hmm. Collect. Organize. Make available. Improve public health.
So, after over 40 continuous years of publication, why is the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine NOT indexed by Medline? And what are the consequences of such exclusion? In a nutshell, it stops the public from using their computers to learn about all of the scientific research and clinical reports demonstrating the effectiveness of megavitamin (orthomolecular) therapy. It also greatly hampers professionals from seeing pro-vitamin studies.
Have you ever wondered why your doctor simply does not know about vitamin therapy?
Well, wonder no longer. He or she can’t read what isn’t “collected,” electronically indexed, or otherwise “made available” to them.
If the vast majority of journals indexed by Medline are pharmaceutical-friendly, and yet nutritional research is censored, what can you expect?
Your taxes should not be used to fund censorship in a public library, especially the largest medical library on the planet. It is un-American.
Of course, Medline doesn’t censor everything nutritional. Here is a current example of some research that Medline does in fact choose to index:
PIZZA PREVENTS HEART ATTACKS
Gallus S, Tavani A, La Vecchia C. Pizza and risk of acute myocardial
infarction. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2004 Nov;58(11):1543-6.
“Some of the ingredients of pizza have been shown to have a favourable
influence on the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, there is no single
explanation for the present findings.”
PIZZA PREVENTS CANCER
Gallus S, Bosetti C, Negri E, Talamini R, Montella M, Conti E, Franceschi
S, La Vecchia C. Does pizza protect against cancer? Int J Cancer. 2003 Nov
1;107(2):283-4.
“We analyzed the potential role of pizza on cancer risk, using data from an integrated network of case-control studies. . . Pizza appears therefore to be a favorable indicator of risk for digestive tract neoplasms in this
population.”
But be careful of that olive oil
Wong GA, King CM. Occupational allergic contact dermatitis from olive oil
in pizza making. Contact Dermatitis. 2004 Feb;50(2):102-3.
MORE PIZZA
Here is my all-time favorite: yet another article that Medline actually is indexing. It is not even from a medical journal. I am not making its mile-long title up, either. It is there at Medline, right now, just a few
clicks away from you:
Simon HB. “My husband subscribes to Harvard Men’s Health Watch, but I read
it even more than he does. I hope you can help us resolve a disagreement. He wants to have pizza two to three times a week for his prostate, but I don’t think it’s a healthy food. Who is right?” (Harvard Men’s Health Watch.
2003 Jun;7(11):8.)
Evidently the very name “Harvard” is enough to get your foot inside the Medline door. That, or “everything but anchovies.”
Oddly enough, the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine has not published a single article on pizza. At least not so far. Maybe if it did, it would make the cut at Medline.
On the other hand, the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine has a review board including medical doctors, university faculty, and hospital-based researchers. Since 1967, it has published over 600 papers by renowned authors
including Roger J. Williams, Emanuel Cheraskin, Carl C. Pfeiffer, Bernard Rimland, Abram Hoffer, and Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling. You should be able to access abstracts (concise summaries) of these papers, instantly and forfree, via Medline. Well, you can’t.
My addition:
Since the National Library of Medicine and the National Institute of Health do not have to take your complaints seriously, I suggest you write to your Members of Congress, you each have one representative and 2
Senators. I am attaching 2 form letters for you to send asking your congressmembers to contact the chairmen of the committees that have jurisdiction over these agencies and those who appropriate funds for their operation and demand that rigorous scientific research on nutritional properties of foods be included in medline. The authoritative medical database that practitioners and consumers use should not be restricted to patented prescription drugs that inflate medical costs.
Select the letter and copy it onto your browser, when you get to your
congressmembers page you can paste it onto area for your comments. Remember to
put in your Representatives name
In order to find your congressional representative go to
(http://www.house.gov)
Click on Write your representative on left side. Select your state and put in your zipcode. The representative contact page will come up. In order to use my form letter.
In order to write your senators using my form letter download
“SenateMedlinefmltr” select the letter and copy it onto your browser. go to (http://www.senate.gov) find your state at the top right. Each state has 2 senators. Write to both.
Click on web form write page.You can go directly to your senators contact page.
When you get to the place for your message paste my form letter into the page.
Remember to put in your senators name.
Eventually we will get this information included in the medline index. If
possible call your legislators and ask who is handling Health Issues for the Congessmember if they trying to contact the legislators in charge of oversight of the National Library of Medicine on this issue.
“The National Library of Medicine refuses to index the Journal of
Orthomolecular Medicine, though it is peer-reviewed and seems to meet their
criteria.” (Psychology Today, Nov-Dec 2006)
NOTE: Four decades of papers from the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine
are now online for you to read, Medline or no Medline, at
(http://orthomolecular.org/library/jom/)
The JOM Archive is a free service with no advertising.
(Andrew W. Saul taught nutrition, health science and cell biology at the college level. He is the author of Doctor Yourself and Fire Your Doctor! and, with Dr. Abram Hoffer, co-author of Orthomolecular Medicine for Everyone
and The Vitamin Cure for Alcoholism. Saul is featured in the documentary film Food Matters. He is on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine.) Nutritional Medicine is Orthomolecular Medicine
Orthomolecular medicine uses safe, effective nutritional therapy to fightillness.
For more information: http://www.orthomolecular.org
The peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service is a non-profit and
non-commercial informational resource.
Editorial Review Board:
Carolyn Dean, M.D., N.D.
Damien Downing, M.D.
Michael Gonzalez, D.Sc., Ph.D.
Steve Hickey, Ph.D.
James A. Jackson, PhD
Bo H. Jonsson, MD, Ph.D
Thomas Levy, M.D., J.D.
Jorge R. Miranda-Massari, Pharm.D.
Erik Paterson, M.D.
Gert E. Shuitemaker, Ph.D.
Andrew W. Saul, Ph.D
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