7 children at Mesa school overdose on vitamins

7 children at Mesa school overdose on vitamins

Associated Press
Apr. 13, 2004 07:30 AM

Seven children overdosed yesterday on an over-the-counter vitamin supplement at Mesa's Power Middle School.

School officials say they learned of the overdose after a 12-year-old girl reported having the shakes, a rash and being irritable about 9:30 yesterday morning.

Deputy Mesa fire chief Mary Cameli says examinations revealed that the children had taken niacin, a vitamin supplement that's also used to treat high cholesterol.

more: http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0413VitaminOverdose13-ON.html

Niacin in large doses can be deadly--and has harmed huge numbers of those under the Hubbard thumb. Wonder what those kids were thinking...

There is some scientific evidence that higher than normal doses of Niacin do have an effect on triglycerides. I don't know about the Scientology connection - please elaborate.

Yes, I'm aware that niacin is helpful for people with high cholesterol. In $cientology, however, they use it as a cure-all for everything up to and including addiction problems--it borders on the bizarre, and can be very, very dangerous (because they prescribe doses far, far higher than any reputable physician would recommend). Here's a quick list of links from the best anti-scientology site on the net:

http://search.freefind.com/find.html?id=6707946&pid=r&mode=ALL&query=niacin

Niacin is now the treatment of choice for hypertriglyceridemia -- elevated triglycerides. I take 2 grams per day and have had no ill effects, and started at a lower dose, so I had few unpleasant effects.

As to Niacin being deadly -- this is new to me. The worst it can do, as far as I know, is to skew liver enzyme tests. If you have any links or citations, I'd be interested in looking into it as a Niacin therapy patient, not as a flamer! (I'll be keeping my own eyes open, too.)

Niacin, funnily enough, also has some (limited) efficacy in treating mental illness, and can "turn off" a psychedelic drug experience for some (but not all) trippers.

Now, with Scientology, the risk factor shoots up. It's not the Niacin, it's the Purification Rundown, which helps some people, but absolutely destroys other people. The "Purif", as they call it, also involves spending long periods of time in saunas, ingestion of vegetable oil (enough to be able to cause diarrhea), and Auditing, the counseling method used by Scientology. With proper medical controls, the "Purif" might be helpful to many people, but there are no such things as "proper medical controls" in Scientology.

--bkl

I specifically noted large doses of niacin--and yes, the rest of the purification rundown certainly complicates the situation for xenu weenies. I linked to some of OC's $cieno/niacin articles in my other post.

Thanks, by the way, for the broader description of the purif rundown. After a time, I begin to assume that most DUers are at least passingly familiar with the nonsense coming out of Hubbard's cult, so your post was very informative for those who don't know.

(I looked this over and it came off a little harsh. But there's a lot of information, so I left it pretty much unchanged. This isn't a flame -- but it does contain criticism of some anti-Scientology and anti-vitamin critics. Nothing personal is implied or intended, and I am grateful for the opportunity to rant on a few of my favorite subjects. --bkl)

You're right, but ... a lot of criticism of Scientology and "health fads" itself misses the point, and can do a lot of damage, too.

This was evident in some of Operation Clambake's links, which consistently focused on trivial issues. In one of the letters, "megavitamins" were criticized, and the doses given -- RDA vs LRH -- made LRH look good, especially as more medical information comes in about the safety and efficacy of megavitamin therapy. And scant attention was paid to the saunas, which can be very good for a person -- and can kill someone with heart disease, or post-heatstroke syndrome (among other things). The National Council Against Health Fraud itself is one of the most ill-informed, quasi-scientific clearinghouses of (mis-) information out there. It's better than Hubbard's idea of medicine, but it's still a minefield.

So, how does anti-Scientology and anti-"fad nutrition" criticism miss the point? Belief in Xenu and the use of the E-Meter are trivial aspects of Scientology compared to the Rehabilitation Project Force, the private system of gulags Scientology maintains. And taking 110 mg of Niacin and 800 iu of vitamin E daily is not likely to have any ill effects on anyone, but spending four hours a day in a sauna alternating with running to the rest room to poop out a pint of electrolyte-carrying fluid out is like having cholera in the third world.

Although I respect Operation Clambake's efforts, their zeal to fight Scientology has set them up for their own "Operation Foot Bullet." Keith Henson struck out against the Co$ emotionalistically, and they destroyed his life; and the Bob Minton saga is the stuff of which Grisham novels are made.

In addition, there is a large and growing movement within Scientology to reform the church, FWIW.

Why am I delving into this? First is previous history with Scientology -- I've had several friends who have been involved directly, and I myself was insterested enough to read most of Hubbard's publically-available "scriptures". I carry no flag for Scientology, but Niacin therapy has worked very well for me.

There is a lot of nonsense out there, but the crusaders against nonsense often simply fight for a new kind of nonsense. For years, the FDA used to caution patients against taking vitamin E. They also mounted a half-backed effort against Coenzyme Q10, in spite of 30 years of solid clinical and experimental research showing that it reduced congestive heart failure. How many heart and cancer patients died (determinable by biostatistics methods) before the FDA stopped being the pharmaceutical industries' hired muscle?

Compare, if you will, to the mass administration of drugs and vitamins to children, especially where quality control is less of an issue than saving The Taxpayer's™ Money.

Until and unless people become directly involved in issues held to be the domain of Experts -- religion and medicine being two of the big ones -- abuses will continue, including sick and dead children, and then Xenu and his sweat program will seem like quaint little indulgences of celebrities, Trustafarians, and eccentrics.

--bkl

I'm not favor of anyone OD'ing on Niacin, Ephedra or any supplements, Rx drugs, or OTC drugs. That said. I do think that the pharmaceutical companies keep rolling the goalpost back in terms of which people should be taking their drugs. For instance, the new lower standards of what constitutes "high" cholesterol or hypertension. Numbers once considered normal are now considered "borderline" high and these suggestions that 36 million people should be taking statins rather than the 12 or so million currently on them. I don't doubt that the drugs to treat these conditions and ADD can be very beneficial and even life-saving to some. But I smell a grab for big profits when I see these stories in the newspapers and news magazines who seem to derive a large percentage of their ad revenue for Rx drug advertising.

I mean if he's doing the Purif, he should be wrinkly, skinny and have a zomby look in his eyes.

Or is that just a beginner's ritual?

my aunt self-treated for high cholesterol, and destroyed her liver, and of course she died from that. That's skewing the liver tests, alright. Not to deny that of course the stuff is an essential vitamin, and can be very helpful. But overdoses will kill you. I remembering some stories of early antarctic explorers having to eat their sled dogs, and dying from niacin toxicity because they ate the dogs' livers....google time -
No, it was vitamin A
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/shackleton/surviving/quest.html

-snip-
Sir Douglas Mawson, Aurora 1911-1913 Declining an overture from Shackleton and Scott's invitation to join his dash for the Pole, geologist Douglas Mawson mounted the Australasian Antarctic Expedition to explore the unknown region west of Cape Adare on the Ross Sea. A party led by Frank Wild, a veteran of Nimrod, explored King George V Land and Terre Adélie, while photographer Frank Hurley joined a group making for the South Magnetic Pole. Mawson proceeded east of Cape Denison with Xavier Mertz and Belgrave Ninnis. Just 320 miles into their journey, Ninnis fell into a crevasse and disappeared with most of the food and tools. Desperate to outstrip starvation, Mawson and Mertz killed the huskies for food and fell victim to vitamin A poisoning from eating the dog liver. Unknown at the time, the affliction produced wasting, fissuring of skin, and dementia, and ultimately claimed Mertz's life. Mawson struggled almost 100 miles to his base alone (see Survival Stories), to see the Aurora sailing away. So ravaged that his horrified colleague cried out "My God! Which one are you?," he spent nearly a year waiting for a relief ship. Mawson's exploration contributed more geographical knowledge of Antarctica than any other explorer of the Heroic Age.
-snip-

That's the first Niacin fatality I've heard of -- my condolences. I, too, initiated my own treatment, but my physician has been following it since about the first month. Also, I had read up pretty well on it, and made sure my liver enzyme systems were within normal limits.

I had always heard and read that the effects on the liver were quite minor. My own liver is healthy, but I'll certainly keep alert for signs of trouble.

I'd heard of Mawson's experience with hypervitaminosis A -- it had also plagued other groups of explorers off and on throughout history. Of course, scurvy was the big threat.

Thanks for the info.

--bkl

Barney Rubble would never cause the shakes.

they call it a flush, actually, you feel hot all over and a skin flush happens. It's quite a unique sensation--it must have scared the crap out of those little kids.