- #1
- 24,017
- 3,337
My thread on potassium brought this food faddist to my attention. It just re-emphasizes that people that go down the path of self-medicating or even making changes to a nutritionally sound diet are risking not only their health but their lives.
This is shocking, but unfortunately there are many, many people that are more willing to believe crackpots than follow sound advice. I strongly suggest reading the entire linked article.
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/davis.html
This is shocking, but unfortunately there are many, many people that are more willing to believe crackpots than follow sound advice. I strongly suggest reading the entire linked article.
Adelle Davis (1904-1974) was the first "health authority" among modern food faddists who had any formal professional background. She was trained in dietetics and nutrition at the University of California at Berkeley, and got an M.S. degree in biochemistry from the University of Southern California in 1938. Despite this training, she promoted hundreds of nutritional tidbits and theories that were unfounded. At the 1969 White House Conference on Food and Nutrition, the panel on deception and misinformation agreed that Davis was probably the most damaging source of false nutrition information in the nation. Most of her ideas were harmless unless carried to extremes, but some were very dangerous. For example, she recommended magnesium as a treatment for epilepsy, potassium chloride for certain patients with kidney disease, and megadoses of vitamins A and D for other conditions.
In 1971, a 4-year-old victim of Davis's advice was hospitalized at the University of California Medical Center in San Francisco. The child appeared pale and chronically ill. She was having diarrhea, vomiting, fever, and loss of hair. Her liver and spleen were enlarged, and other signs suggested she had a brain tumor. Her mother, "a food faddist who read Adelle Davis religiously," had been giving her large doses of vitamins A and D plus calcium lactate. Fortunately, when these supplements were stopped, the little girl's condition improved.
Little Eliza Young was not so fortunate. During her first year of life she was given "generous amounts" of vitamin A as recommended in Let's Have Healthy Children (1951). As a result, according to the suit filed in 1971 against Davis and her publisher, Eliza's growth was permanently stunted. The estate of Adelle Davis settled in 1976 for $150,000.
Two-month-old Ryan Pitzer was even less fortunate [5]. According to the suit filed by his parents, Ryan was killed in 1978 by the administration of potassium chloride for colic as suggested in the same book. The suit was settled out of court for a total of $160,000—$25,000 from the publisher, $75,000 from Davis's estate, and $60,000 from the potassium product's manufacturer. After the suit was filed, the book was recalled from bookstores, but it was reissued after changes were made by a physician allied with the health-food industry.
Adelle Davis used to say that she never saw anyone get cancer who drank a quart of milk daily, as she did. She stopped saying that when she died of cancer in 1974, leaving behind her a trail of ten million books and a following that was large, devoted, and misinformed.
Her influence has faded, but not to zero. In 2005, an 11-month-old boy who was raised on barley water and goats milk as recommended in Let's Have Healthy Children wound up with severe anemia due to vitamin deficiency [10]. The treating physicians said he was lucky to escape brain damage.
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/davis.html