April 2002

Dear Friends, www.majesticearth-minerals.com

I don't watch much television but I'm starting to notice, when my son has the set on, something rather disturbing: there are ads, now, for prescription drugs! Can you believe it? Have you seen the commercials I'm referring to? The ads show seniors, liberated from arthritic pain, bounding around in slo-mo, smiles on their Hollywood faces. At the end we are urged to, "Ask (our) doctor for Vi-oxx!"

Perhaps I would think nothing of the TV ads except I know that the doctors, themselves, get it on the other end. Legions of sales reps from the Pharmaceutical companies fill their offices, daily, dangling sweet incentives in front of their faces so they will just listen to the latest pitch about the latest pill. Sadly, the result of all this pressure, seduction and manipulation, is that America is absolutely swimming in drugs. Three billion prescriptions are written every year in the United States. We spend $90 million, on average, each day or $33 billion per year on them. Eighty percent of seniors over 65 take at least one prescription drug every day and 40% take five per day. The pharmaceutical companies are no dummies. The reason we see their high dollar ads on television is because they know that 90% of all visits to the doctor, end in a prescription being written and they know that 8 out of 10 doctors will prescribe the drugs their patients ask for by name. Certainly the stockholders at Merck and Pfizer are happy with this state of affairs, chief executives are thrilled, but should we be?

I think not. If you read your Physician's Desk Reference (PDR) you'll see that nearly every drug, and there are thousands of them, carries side effects, produces 'collateral damage,' is how the military would put it. We put a drug in our body and we place a burden on our liver. Our liver must detoxify the foreign substance and the kidneys must remove the waste. Multiple drugs result in multiple side effects: the strain increases and the danger grows. Obviously, we would not buy prescription drugs if they did not make us feel better or hold the promise of fuller function, but sometimes we are so desperate to feel better that we don't think about the risks and the real, long term, costs involved.

The FDA reports that up to 2 million people are hospitalized, annually, and 140,000 die, annually, from side effects or reactions to prescription drugs. Fifty one percent of all approved drugs have serious side effects not detected prior to their approval. The Agency for Health Care Policy and Research reports that 3 out of 10 hospitalized patients will suffer an 'adverse drug event' which will require a longer hospital stay and /or further drug therapy to counter the effect of the adverse drug event. The right drug for the right emergency can save your life but there are so many new drugs now, around 100 new ones each year, that doctors simply can't keep up. In the late 90's 70% of all doctors treating medicare patients flunked an exam designed to test their expertise in prescribing medication to the elderly.

Health care consumers, ironically, are just as responsible for all this madness as are the drug vendors and the doctors. After all, when we feel lousy we demand something, something tangible, which will deliver quick results. We are a push button society. To heck with the long term consequences, we want to feel better, now. Certainly, drug companies create demand through advertising and promotion but demand, too, raw and unsolicited demand from consumers, ultimately drives the market.

We are all very lucky to be the beneficiaries of the insights, wisdom and experience of Dr. Joel Wallach. Although he is licensed to prescribe drugs in most states, he seldom does. He is a Naturopathic physician. Naturopathic physicians have a different orientation and a different sort of credo than do their Allopathic (M.D. practitioners of traditional western medicine) counterparts. Naturopathic physicians have a deep respect for and trust in the body's own innate intelligence, its own innate ability to heal and function optimally, given half a chance. Dr. Wallach prefers to give people who will listen to him that 'half a chance,' rather than see them forced to rely on dangerous drugs or surgery to 'manage' their complaints. In a world where high tech (the latest organ transplant, test tube baby, etc.) gets all the attention, glamour and glitz, Dr. Wallach advocates for common sense, low tech, relatively inexpensive solutions to what has grown to be an epidemic of degenerative disease.

Dr. Wallach is actually known in many parts as "The Mineral Doctor." He makes the point that due to one hundred plus years of 'industrialized' farming practices our range and crop soils have been, essentially, emptied of minerals. We rely on the plants and plants rely on the soil to get the minerals we need, yet the soil and therefore our own health, is impoverished. Undoubtedly, most of you reading these words will remember the same thesis expressed on Dr. Wallach's famous health lecture tape, "Dead Doctors Don't Lie." On the tape he proves that nearly all degenerative disease can be traced to a long term nutritional deficiency. The solution is to supplement and supplement religiously with high quality, bio available nutrients: take in, as Dr. Wallach is fond of saying, all 90 nutrients essential to human health on a day in, day out basis.

Once one dares to think 'outside the box' as has Dr. Wallach, one soon realizes that there are a plethora of choices available to each of us when it comes to preserving health and extending human life. Lifestyle changes and adequate supplementation are a crucial first step. But when you start combining human innovation and experience and intelligence with good old Mother Nature you begin to see an explosion of possibility. There are many choices available to each of us before we submit to the surgeon's knife or the doctor's chest of pills. We have the Internet now. We have well stocked libraries. Become your own primary care physician and, according to Dr. Wallach, statistically your chances of reaching your full genetic potential triple.

Some of the really exciting things happening in the field of self-health have to do with 'nutraceuticals.' These are groupings and /or concentrations of nutritional constituents, which, like pharmaceuticals, produce a predictable result, but, unlike pharmaceuticals, cause zero collateral damage (i.e. have no side effects). Most of Dr. Wallach's liquid products (plus the Ultimate EFA) are there to cover the basics, to delivery all 90 nutrients essential to human health in a highly bioavailable, liquid, organic plant derived form. They are not so much nutraceuticals as they are high-end, wide spectrum liquid supplements. Their job is to establish a foundation, a base line. What remains in Dr. Wallach's product line (except for, obviously, the pet products, personal care products and garden products) are the nutraceuticals. CM Plus is a good example, OsteoCAL, Resolution PM, all the tablets and capsules (except Ultimate Daily which is a tablet mega vitamin, mega mineral), the Balance Cream, the Balance FX, Killer Biotic FX, etc.; all these isolate and concentrate nutritional constituents in order to produce certain desirable effects. CM Plus is a grouping of fatty acid esters which act as a powerful anti-inflammatory, OsteoCAL contains the highest grade colloidal calcium and feeds and strengthens our skeletal system, Resolution PM provides a precise grouping of amino acids the body uses to repair and build muscle, Balance Cream serves to achieve hormonal balance, Ultimate SweetEZE (one of our capsule products) helps our body regulate blood sugar levels, Ultimate GlucoGel provides a protein matrix to which minerals can attach thus building bone and cartilage, Ultimate Selenium and Ultimate OPC-T act as powerful anti-oxidants, protecting us against cancer and heart disease. Science is a wonderful thing. We can be very proud of the folks who come up with these incredible tools. Yes, one can find a dandy array of pharmaceuticals designed to address many of the same concerns listed above, but at what cost? It is great to have choices and it is wise to try less invasive and non-toxic choices before moving on to emergency measures.

A month or so ago on a conference call Steve Wallach reported some rather exciting news. The nutraceutical / nutrition industry will soon be allowed more leeway in listing health benefits on product labels. Except for a few items, for example our calcium supplements, we really are not allowed to list health benefits. People looking at our catalog are often frustrated to note that we don't say what product is for what health concern. Fact is, by law, we can't. The Pharmaceutical Companies and the AMA are well organized and well funded and very powerful, in Washington. Slowly, though, things are changing. Our industry has been quietly bringing suit against various governmental agencies, challenging them to make the case of why we can't mention health benefits on our labels. The science is there. A relationship between vitamin E and selenium supplementation and reduced mortality among heart patients, for example, has been clearly established (20 years ago selenium was considered a poison). Why can't we say so on our labels? The case Steve was referring to concerned digestive enzymes.

Until the good news about supplementation really takes hold with the mainstream America, until every label displays it, every medical school teaches it, every caring and responsible person practices it, the best we can do is look after ourselves and our loved ones and vote out the rascals in congress who stand in the way of general acceptance.

Hope all of you are busy drinking in this glorious spring weather.

Best of health to you --- Stu Hunt & Don Ellis