Media Fallacies: Don't always believe the mainstream media

Do you look to mainstream media for information about nutrition and health? Do you trust the mainstream media to give you the most accurate information?

An article on NaturalNews.com was one of the only articles that reported a mainstream media fallacy in the world of nutritional supplements, reporting that although a study was done to show the benefits of vitamin C and vitamin E, the mainstream media took the information and twisted it on its head.

The study was published in the Archives of Internal Medicine and showed that a nine-year trial of women taking vitamin C and E supplements found a 31% reduction in stroke and a 22% reduction in risk of heart attacks. The problem with the study is that not all of the women actually took the vitamins on a regular basis. Unfortunately, the researchers ignored this fact and printed the findings while including the women that that did not take the vitamins. When they were included, the study found no significant benefits to the study.

The article, which was highly opinionated, stated that, “media outlets just can't wait to be spoon-fed the latest propaganda from drug company collaborators and then parrot it out to the public as fact.” The article also pointed out that it would be easy to give pharmaceuticals to a group and then include those who did not take the pharmaceuticals to prove they didn’t work.

The study, despite being flawed with regard to pointing out the findings of the women who did take the vitamins, resulted in a flurry of articles from various sources. Fox News reported: Antioxidants Do Not Protect High-Risk Women from Heart Disease. ABC News reported: Vitamins No Magic Bullet for Heart Health, and even Forbes, NY, reported: Antioxidants No Magic Bullet for Heart Disease in Women.

The NaturalNews.com article went out of its way to point out the many fallacies in our country by stating that we have: “an international reputation in ruins, a dysfunctional national press, a national health care system that actually promotes disease and cures no one, a mentally impaired President, a broken public education system, an irreversible addiction to oil, a drugged-up population of voters and a deeply-ingrained habit of spending itself into financial oblivion.”