Response to Consumer Reports Article about Sports Dietary Supplements Ephedra
In Response to the June 2001 edition of Consumer Reports:
Overwhelming scientific and medical evidence directly conflicts with Consumer Reports’ unfavorable statements about Ephedra contained in an article on sports supplements. The facts are that Ephedra dietary supplements are safe and effective when marketed according to industry standards. Specifically, research conducted at the prestigious Harvard and Columbia Universities, and recently published in abstract form in the FASEB Journal and Obesity Research, showed that dietary supplements containing Ephedra and caffeine are safe and effective as an aid to weight loss. The data from the Harvard and Columbia study confirm the results of numerous other clinical studies, including a separate, short-term study conducted by some of the same Harvard and Columbia researchers and recently published in the International Journal of Obesity.
As support for their stance on Ephedra, Consumer Reports specifically references a University of California, San Francisco study by Christine Haller and Neil Benowitz, published last year. It is important to point out that Haller and Benowitz recently conceded in a letter to the New England Journal of Medicine that their report
does not prove causation, nor does it provide quantitative information with regard to risk.
Moreover, Haller and Benowitz’s findings represent old information that has already been reviewed and rejected by scientific and medical experts because it conflicts with more relevant and reliable data from clinical studies that prove Ephedra’s efficacy. In August 2000, a panel of medical and scientific experts reviewed the same information reviewed by Haller and Benowitz and found that there was no association between Ephedra and serious adverse events when it is taken as directed.
And finally, what Consumer Reports fails to point out is that obesity itself results in 300,000 preventable deaths each year in the United States, and that millions of Americans are benefiting from Ephedra dietary supplements as an aid to weight loss.
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