The Vitamin Revolution
Forward

The Vitamin Revolution by Michael Janson, M.D.

Forward by Julian Whitaker, M.D., Editor, Health and Healing Newsletter.

Michael Janson is my friend and colleague, and we belong to a small but growing fraternity of physicians. Of the 530,000 practicing physicians in this country, Dr. Janson and I are a part of a group of perhaps only one percent--several thousand doctors--who believe that nutrition and appropriate use of vitamins, minerals and medicinal herbs should be the primary therapy for almost all of the medical conditions presented to us by our patients. This does not mean that we do not use prescription drugs, only that they are not our primary therapy .

Most of the physicians in this fraternity have the following characteristics:

1. We use very similar approaches. Almost all of us routinely prescribe esoteric dietary supplements, such as coenzyme Q10, L-camitine, taurine, arginine, pygeum and hawthorne, in addition to more common nutrients. We often use intravenous vitamins and minerals and EDTA chelation therapy for vascular disease.

2. We come from all disciplines in medicine. Dr. Janson studied pathology, I had training in orthopedic surgery, and our ranks include psychiatrists, internists, family practitioners, and surgical sub-specialists of all varieties.

3. As a rule, we have very little, if any, hospital practice or affiliation. In general, the nature of our practices, emphasizing nutrition as primary therapy, often renders a hospital a hostile environment.

4. As Dr. Janson so clearly states, we not only do what we preach, but preach what we do. The reason for this is quite simple. Those of us with this inclination in our medical practices want exactly what our patients want, and that is optimum health with a vibrant lifestyle.

5. However, the single most consistent similarity of the handful of us who are using nutrition and dietary supplements as our primary therapy is that, like moths to the flame, we are attracted to what works.

The nutritional therapies that we use and that Dr. Janson writes about in this book have a strong, in fact, irrefutable basis in science and the medical literature. That they are ignored by the overwhelming majority of conventional physicians is testimony to the power of the institutionalized bias instilled by a medical education system that is virtually controlled by the large pharmaceutical companies.

In addition, for a doctor to structure a practice around the tenets of nutrition puts him or her at professional risk of censure by the state agencies that control the medical profession. As Benjamin Rush, a physician and signer of the Declaration of Independence, once said, "Unless we put medical protection into the Constitution, the time will come when medicine will organize into an undercover dictatorship." This has, without question, occurred, and the forces of the American Medical Association, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the pharmaceutical industry often create awesome hurdles for physicians like us to overcome.

Challenges to medical dogma of any era always meet resistance, but never at any time in history has so much money been at stake. As Dr. Janson clearly points out in this book, nutrition and nutritional supplements can be used for are arbitrarily kept low in order to make processed food appear healthier than it actually is. In short, Dr. Janson's book is a treatise of specific recommendations on how to use nutritional supplements to nurture your system and achieve optimum health.

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The Vitamin Revolution is extremely well organized and easy to read. There is obvious and expected repetition among different dietary supplement programs for specific problems because a host of degenerative diseases result from similar nutritional weaknesses. The book is valuable for both the general public and the physician.

Finally, Dr. Janson clearly points out the political repression of the nutritional supplement industry by the FDA. In reading the testimony that he gave before the Senate committee, as well as his follow-up written testimony, I am once again, struck by the fact that the behavior of FDA Commissioner Kessler and those who guide the FDA's actions are irrational and constitute a public menace.

I am also struck by the fact that bureaucrats in government, like Commissioner Kessler, can be guilty of crimes against humanity yet never have to take responsibility for their actions. Cloaked in the protection of government bureaucracy, Commissioner Kessler and his upper echelon henchmen have clearly increased the suffering of the public by blocking their access to useful information about the value of dietary supplements.

Much of that useful information is in this book. That was Dr. Janson's purpose, and he certainly accomplished it. Those who act on his sound recommendations will surely benefit--likely more than they expect.

Julian Whitaker, MD Editor: Health and Healing

* Source: Forward from The Vitamin Revolution by Michael Janson, M.D.