Published on Feb 8, 2014
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Some natural products companies now engaging in consumer fraud over heavy metals found in their products
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger
(NaturalNews) Perhaps I shouldn't be so easily amused, but I can hardly stop laughing at the theatrical attempts by some people in the natural products industry to convince their customers that eating heavy metals is good for you. Granted, most companies in the natural health space are very ethical and responsible. They are becoming more and more aware of the heavy metals issue in their products and they are taking steps right now to source cleaner materials and provide more transparency to customers. But some companies are still in a state of total denial over heavy metals. In the aftermath of my own science-based findings of significant concentrations of heavy metals in popular "superfood" products, some of these companies are now attempting to push sheer delusions onto their own customers, claiming that heavy metals are good for you.
It all sounds almost exactly like vaccine companies -- "Mercury in flu shots improves brain performance!" -- or biotech firms like Monsanto who say "GMOs and glyphosate are harmless! Eat more!"
And yet, as I'm sure you will agree, the strange idea that heavy metals are safe to eat (apparently at any dose) is wholly inconsistent with the core principles and beliefs of health-conscious consumers. The very basis of the entire organic industry, natural products industry and superfoods industry is that it DOES matter what you eat!
Pseudoscience excuses
What we're really finding is that the issue of heavy metals is rapidly separating genuine health-conscious industry leaders from the hucksters who hope you can be manipulated into eating more of their products that contain lead, mercury, arsenic and cadmium.They've got all sorts of bizarre, pseudoscientific arguments for denying the harm of heavy metals. One person whose products contain heavy metals is now publicly claiming that heavy metals are trace minerals that your body needs. I'm even wondering if he will soon come out with a "Heavy Metals Vitamin" product so you can meet your daily requirement for lead and mercury. It starts to sound a lot like the "energy-boosting radiation pills" sold by charlatans in the early 20th century.
Another argument organized by one particular industry group claims that you can eat all the heavy metals you want because your body doesn't absorb them anyway. Somehow, your body absorbs iron, zinc, manganese, magnesium, calcium and copper, but according to these people, your body magically and selectively does not absorb all the "bad metals" which are found in their own products.
By what digestive miracle such selective absorption takes place is never explained, of course. Perhaps selective absorption is invoked with a magic wand waved over the contaminated food before consuming it.
How can concentration not matter?
Another central argument from the heavy metals deniers is that concentrations don't matter. If 50 ppb of a heavy metal is considered safe, then 500 ppb or even 5,000 ppb must also be safe too, they ridiculously argue.Such a position is, of course, complete nonsense. Concentration is the single most important factor in determining toxicity for an element or chemical. The higher the concentration of a toxic element, the greater the risk of harm.
This is especially true considering the massive quantities of superfoods or natural products which are regularly consumed by millions of consumers. In the popular category of proteins, a typical one-scoop serving is 23 grams. Some readers told us on Facebook that they would eat six scoops a day. If the protein they are eating happens to contain just 2 ppm cadmium, 0.5 ppm lead and 10 ppm tungsten, this means their daily intake of these metals is:
• 276 micrograms of cadmium
• 69 micrograms of lead
• 1,380 micrograms of tungsten
To argue that the routine consumption of these levels of heavy metals has no health consequence whatsoever is beyond irresponsible. It is fraudulent, and it smacks of precisely the kind of quackery the scientific skeptics routinely accuse natural products companies of practicing.
In part, they are actually correct. There is unfortunately some level of fraud in the natural products industry just like you find in the pharmaceutical industry, vaccine industry and the dog food industry. At the same time, there are also ethical, responsible companies who go to tremendous lengths to ensure the purity and safety of their products. In fact, I've gone out of my way to publicize the really clean products we've tested such as One World Whey proteins from Synergistic Nutrition as well as all the incredibly clean iodine products across many brands.
So the argument that heavy metals don't matter in natural products is immediately devoid of any ethical or scientific standing. Of course heavy metals matter. If Brand A of chocolate chips contains 1000 ppb lead, while Brand B chocolate chips contain no lead (but are otherwise equivalent), which brand is safer for your children to consume on a regular basis? The obvious and correct answer is Brand B. Reducing exposure to dietary toxins is always the right choice. And personally, I would really question the ethics and even the scientific grasp of anyone who argues that reducing exposure to dietary toxins doesn't matter in the least.
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