Nutraceuticals and nootropics for anti-aging

Latest news from the “Anti” Movement

The War Against Supplements keeps heating up, as cynical politicians and lack-witted sports writers try to outdo each other in their calls for banning various supplements. Sports organizations add layer-upon-layer of intrusions into athletes’ dietary habits, and are now getting embroiled in lawsuits as mistakes are made and athletes’ reputations smeared.

The whole process is so absurd that one is tempted to laugh at it. But the loss of personal freedom involved is no laughing matter. We already have, in most Western countries, a totalitarian system for trying to control drug use — special agencies with huge budgets, hordes of drug police, a vast prison industry, and draconian punishments for those unwilling to have the government dictate their personal choices. Known as the War Against Drugs, this supposedly anti-drug effort has achieved the exact opposite of what it claims to be working for: it has caused an enormous increase in drug smuggling, drug use, violence, and incarceration. And the totalitarian-minded elements in our society want to expand the scope of this disaster to include nutritional supplements.

Now, it’s understandable that certain government agencies (such as the Food and Drug Administration and the Drug Enforcement Administration) would like to see a continual increase in the number of substances that people are denied access to — after all, the longer the list of banned substances, the bigger the enforcement budget will be, and the more status the agency personnel will have. The proper way to deal with these agencies is to elect legislators who have the courage to disparage their work, denounce their leadership, cut their budgets, and reverse the laws that created them.

But what do we do when journalists start calling for more totalitarian laws? Sports writers seem to be at the leading edge of this wave of stupidity. Pursuing some naive and misguided goal of “preserving the purity of sports”, they parrot anything negative they come across regarding athletic performance enhancers, and present it to the public as dramatically and threateningly as possible. The best response by those of us who favor freedom of choice is to speak out against these journalists whenever possible and don’t mince words. Impugn their motives as well as their facts. Question their professionalism. Treat their attitudes with disgust.

The following links illustrate these totalitarian trends in sports journalism:

A dangerous game? Athletes turn to supplements to bulk up

Northwestern says more players on supplements when player died

NU: Football players used supplements

Enhancement advances further muddying drug quagmire

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The European Union is increasingly revealing itself as an oppressive superstate-in-the-making — the consequence, perhaps, of being formed from societies with long histories of oppressive government. The EU’s laws regarding supplements are now being imposed on the United Kingdom, to the dismay of Brits who value freedom of choice.

Link to the news story:

Supplements directive arouses debate in UK

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A story by Amy Shipley of the Washington Post well illustrates the presumptuous arrogance of what could be called the “Anti” Movement — the movement that seeks to strip individuals of the freedom to choose for themselves what techniques to use for personal enhancement. In Shipley’s story it is taken for granted that the government has both the right and the duty to ban any substance that receives negative press coverage — which is to say, any substance that is frowned upon by people like Amy Shipley and her “news” sources at the DEA.

Link to the story:

New steroids can be undetectable

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Finally, here’s a story by Linda Marsa of the Los Angeles Times. The story begins with a strong anti-supplement bias, then reveals indirectly that there really wasn’t much basis for the negativity. Marsa seems to have constructed a “tempest in a teapot” — a dramatic-sounding report on the dangers of supplements, based on practically nothing. As for the FDA’s claim that “less than 1 percent of adverse reactions from supplement usage are officially reported”, one can only wonder where they got that figure if the adverse reactions were never reported. And why didn’t Linda Marsa question the claim instead of simply repeating it?

Link to the story:

Study: Dietary supplements can harm