Supplements Under Siege: Inside the Conspiracy to Take Away Your Vitamins, Minerals, and Herbs

What a great book! This book is filled with great information about how our vitamins and supplements really are being attacked by big pharmaceutical companies. I'm sure they would rather have us all taking their drugs, but shouldn't we be able to decide what's best for us? Shouldn't we be able to do our own research and make our own informed decisions as to what is right for each of us? This book lays out lots of details on the FDA and Big Pharmaceutical and how they impact our choices. But the great part about it is that it's so easy to read. A real page-turner, packed with great information that we all need to know about. This guy's really done his research and written another great book

As a voracious consumer of books related to obtaining and maintaining good health-I'd read Fillon's earlier effort, The Good Digestion Guide-and as one who supplements his dietary consumption with vitamins and supplements, I eagerly awaited Fillon's latest effort, Supplements Under Siege. I expected more top notch reporting from this fine investigative reporter but I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book is as much a page-turning investigative thriller as it is a clarion call to Americans: Open your eyes to the commercial and political interests, which influence efforts to change the laws regarding the purchasing and consumption of dietary supplements, and eventually impact our health. Fillon discovers and exposes misleading information on government web sites, including the FDA and the National Institutes of Health, planned negative studies by drug companies, timed to plant seeds of doubt in the public, misleading advertising, and sloppy reporting. His chapter on the Regulators, specifically the FDA, which wields enormous clout over what we eat, drink, and take as "medicine" is both illuminating and disturbing. The book is filled with interesting facts; I was amazed to learn that the FDA regulates over $ 1 trillion worth of products, one of every four dollars spent annually by American I was appalled to learn of the insidious practice called "off label prescribing" which is prescribing drugs for unapproved uses, particularly anti-depressants to manage chronic pain. Fillon suggests that this practice is at best tacitly approved by the pharmaceutical industry and at its worst an over-promotion of drugs to doctors. If you're like me, one who believes that profits, influence and power are more important to the mega-sized pharmaceuticals than our good health than I highly recommend Fillon's book. My only quibble is the books title. I think the title Supplements Under Siege is fine but Fillon's comment on what should be the drug companies' motto would have been better: Eat, Drink and Be Merry: We Have a Drug for Everything. And the subtitle to that should have been Fillon's wise words, "The best hope for our health is our own vigilance."

America spends more on healthcare than any other country--on an absolute and per capita basis--yet we are less healthy on average than nearly all other developed nations. The way to good health is prevention: eating right, exercising, supplementing your health with safe vitamins, minerals and herbs. This terrifically well-researched and easy-to-read book opened my eyes to the reasons that Americans get so little for their money when it comes to health. In every other nation, alternative, preventive health care is widely promoted. Only in America is it being regulated out of existence. This book will open your eyes, lead you to better health practices and make you angry about a healthcare system that isn't healthy!

From the introduction on through Mike leads us through one eye-opening expose to another about the truth behind medicine and why all those supplements suddenly start showing up on the news as "bad for you". Excellent read! I recommend it to anyone wanting to get at the truth behind the thinly disguised as "health care" disease business and find out why our supplements and natural health are being attacked. I've referred to this book several times on the online natural animal health radio show I host as provocation to look deeper into the truth. by co-author of Whole Health for Happy Dogs!

This is a must-read book for anyone who has any dealings with doctors -- and I mean as a patient. We need to know the facts about pharmaceuticals so that we can make an informed decision when they tell us to start taking Lipitor or blood pressure medication. We don't think of medicines as toxic, but this book gives the facts, figures, studies, and stories. Mike Fillon shows us how the FDA has been co-opted by the pharmaceutical industry and how that industry -- which profits from our illness, not wellness -- influences what doctors and the general population perceives as illness. Here's some advice -- don't go on Lipitor (you're survival rate won't improve) and don't start taking blood-pressure medication for the newly discovered "prehypertension." This book was an eye opener and a very pleasant read.