Too deliciously ironic for words: Gary Null hoisted by his own petard

[Ian David]

Too deliciously ironic for words: Gary Null hoisted by his own petard

Category: Alternative medicine • Medicine • Quackery
Posted on: April 29, 2010 10:00 AM, by Orac

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A controversial alternative health guru is suing after a taste of his own medicine nearly killed him.

Gary Null - described on quackwatch.org as "one of the nation's leading promoters of dubious treatment for serious disease" - claims the manufacturer of Gary Null's Ultimate Power Meal overloaded the supplements with Vitamin D.

The buff "Joy of Juicing" author, whose products include Red Stuff Powder and Gary Null's Heavenly Hair Cleaner, claims he suffered kidney damage and was left bloodied and in intense pain from two daily servings of the supplement.

"Null continued to take the Ultimate Power Meal, all the while thinking that it would help him, and relieve his condition; instead, it made him worse," the suit says.

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I can't resist repeating it. Gary Null's own supplement apparently almost killed him. The schadenfreude is just too rich.

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Don't get me wrong. I don't wish harm on anyone, not even Gary Null. I am actually happy that he appears to have mostly recovered. But Null is, in my not-so-humble-opinion, one of the biggest quacks out there today, and this sort of thing is the inevitable consequence of the lack of regulation in the U.S. Thanks to the DSHEA of 1994, the FDA is pretty much powerless to regulate most supplements before something happens. As long as the manufacturer keeps its claims sufficiently vague, using terms such as "supports the immune system" or something similar and protects itself with the Quack Miranda, it can get away with almost anything, as Gary Null's own accidental self-poisoning demonstrates so ironically. What we have is basically the honor system, and, quite frankly, the supplement industry doesn't have a whole lot of honor to it. As amusing as it may be to contemplate Gary Null as a victim of this lax regulation and to observe him suing one of his contractors for having botched the manufacture of one of his products to the point were several people were sickened, the situation with respect to supplements is a free-for-all, and stories like Null's are the inevitable result:

More:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2010/04/too_deliciously_ironic_for_words_gary_nu.php


Hat-tip to:
@ derekcbart Gary Null's own supplement apparently almost killed him. Irony can be pretty ironic at times. http://tinyurl.com/25z7ad9
http://twitter.com/derekcbart/status/13072960203


BTW, this asshole is also Gary Null is also an AIDS-Denialist.

Quack record
Bestselling health and fitness guru Gary Null weighs in on AIDS. Almost all of what he says is useless, dangerous and just plain wrong.
http://dir.salon.com/books/feature/2002/05/21/null/index.html

See also:

A Critical Look at Gary Null's Activities and Credentials
Stephen Barrett, M.D.
http://www.quackwatch.org/04ConsumerEducation/null.html