A controversial alternative health guru is suing after a taste of his own medicine nearly killed him.I'm sorry, but this is funny on too many levels. So many of these alternative medicine quacks 'prescribe' these HUGE vitamin supplements to their patients (all at huge mark-ups) as well as all kinds of "herbal remedies."
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.
The suit filed in Manhattan Supreme Court accuses Triarco Industries of causing Null's "near-death experience" by botching the testing and manufacturing of the supplement.
Null, who also owns an eponymous food shop on the upper West Side, contends he was hit last December with "excruciating fatigue" that left him unable to walk and forced him to fly back to New York and cancel lectures, counseling and filming.
"Null would later be told that if he had not flown back to New York and seen his doctor, then he could have died within a short period of time," the suit says.
"Null then sequestered himself and fasted, only consuming massive amounts of water as he was told there was no medical treatment to lower the amount of Vitamin D in his system."
The suit accuses Triarco of inadequate safety testing that led to six consumers being hospitalized with severe kidney damage. A company representative did not return calls.
"Null, in the midst of all this, while he was suffering in bed, had dozens of his customers calling him, along with condemning and threatening him," the suit says. "In fact, they threatened that they would never buy any product of his ever again."
A lawyer for Null declined to comment, but did say the tainted supplies of the Ultimate Power Meal have been pulled from store shelves.
The suit says Null, 65, is still suffering the effects of too much Vitamin D.
"Even now, Null's condition is questionable as he continues to occasionally urinate blood," the suit says. "Unfortunately, there is no medical treatment for this as it is a matter of waiting, watching and observing what develops next."
But lots of time their cures are, as we saw above, dangerous. Too much Vitamin A can cause dry skin, hair loss, birth defects, liver damage and excess cranial pressure. Too much Vitamin C can damage teeth, cause certain kidney stones, heartburn, cramps, insomnia, diarrhea and even, ironically, a condition called "rebound scurvy." Too much Vitamin B6 can cause peripheral nerve neuropathy.
An additional irony is that this is the natural and logical consequence of Libertarian Principles applied to medicine. The unregulated manufacturer, in the unregulated "quasi-medicine" market made a bad product; because, as the suit alleges, they didn't adequately test and inspect, thus letting bad crap get out the door. Something you shouldn't be able to without risk when an appropriately staffed, directed and funded FDA is testing your lots at random.
No word if the product is manufactured as designed. If so, that's a whole new irony.
