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Nutritionist Claims His Pre-Packaged Meals Are Dangerous

Posted by samzenpus on from the hoist-with-his-own-petard dept.

Nutrition guru Gary Null may be best known as an advocate for alternative medicines, or for his stance that HIV does not cause AIDS, but his recent lawsuit may raise more eyebrows. Gary is suing the maker of his pre-packaged "Power Meals," claiming that they will make you sick. From the article: "In a lawsuit filed in New York on April 26, Gary Null alleges that he became severely ill after eating a dietary supplement that caused him to develop a number of painful symptoms. In fact, Gary Null alleges, 'Gary Null's Ultimate Power Meal' almost killed Gary Null."

35 comments

  1. It just has to be said... by dov_0 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I guess he got a taste of his own medicine?

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    sudo mount --milk --sugar /cup/tea /mouth /etc/init.d/relax start
    1. Re:It just has to be said... by Cryacin · · Score: 1

      Talk about eating your own dog food.

      --
      Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
    2. Re:It just has to be said... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Fuckin' quack should have choked on that shit!

  2. Maybe... by evel+aka+matt · · Score: 1

    Maybe he's counting on jury nullification!

  3. Ultimate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Max Quordlepleen: Believe me, ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing penultimate about this one. This one, ladies and gentlemen, is the proverbial "it". After this, there is void... emptiness... oblivion... absolute nothing.

  4. Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by 5pp000 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Looks like someone read "micro" and thought "milli" again (they used 1000 times too much vitamin D in the mix).

    Same thing that happened in that tragic accident that killed all those racehorses some months ago -- someone was supposed to put N micrograms of selenium in their supplement, but instead gave them N milligrams. They died a horrible death.

    Maybe we should consider changing one of these prefixes so they don't both begin with "m".

    --
    Your god may be dead, but mine aren't!
    1. Re:Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by CyberBill · · Score: 1

      I always thought micro started with a u.

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      -Bill
    2. Re:Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2, Interesting

      It's worse.

      In vitamin-word they call a microgram a "mikrogram" (phoenetic) which doens't reeenforce the unit, and instead of g they write mcg. They must be using cheap typewriters.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    3. Re:Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      OK, so Slashdot appears to be an old cheap typewriter too.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    4. Re:Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      Maybe we should consider changing one of these prefixes so they don't both begin with "m".

      Or spelling them out when it matters: "use 53 micrograms of Vitamin Foo".

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      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    5. Re:Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It does, that's why it's spelled uicrogram.

    6. Re:Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      Even more insiduous is that when MS designed thier symbol font (yes I know it's a deperecated way of doing things but not everyone moves with the times) they put the micro sign at the m position. So if someone uses the symbol font to represent the micro sign and then font information is lost or the font is unavailable the micro sign will be replaced by an m.

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      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    7. Re:Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by Hurricane78 · · Score: 1

      You are both right and wrong.
      It starts with a greek letter mu, which is an M, but whose small letter looks nearly like a u.

      --
      Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
    8. Re:Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by NemosomeN · · Score: 1

      What would be an example of when a 3 orders of magnitude difference would be irrelevant?

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      I hate grammar Nazi's.
    9. Re:Argh, "micro" and "milli" again by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      Well, most uses aren't life-and-death, or nearly so unobvious. 100mg of an unfamiliar medicine doesn't look like an unreasonable amount, even if 100ug is the correct dose. If the correct volume is 1g, though, you'd probably do a double-take if the bottle was mislabeled that each dose was 1kg.

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      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
  5. ouch by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Would that make him a null finger pointer?

  6. units schmoonits by Mick+R · · Score: 1

    The correct suffix for a measurement in micrograms is the Greek letter Mu (like a u)g. ie g. mcg is just ... pathetic and a sad indictment on anyone who uses it.

    1. Re:units schmoonits by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Have you noticed a quickly scrawled mu rather resembles a m? Doctors aren't paid for their handwriting...

    2. Re:units schmoonits by DragonWriter · · Score: 1

      The correct suffix for a measurement in micrograms is the Greek letter Mu (like a u)g.

      mcg is standard in medicine, and is important handwritten prescriptions since a handwritten script "m" and a handwritten Greek mu can be virtually indistinguishable, while script "mcg" is far more distinct from "mg", see, e.g., here.

    3. Re:units schmoonits by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      This seems to me like a classic case of papering over the symptoms rather than solving the underlying issue* and in doing so creating potential confusion if/when the information is passed to paople of another proffession (as might for example.by the case with these power meals, I bet the people making them aren't medical proffesionals)

      *The underlying issue being people using script handwriting (and often bad script handwriting at that) to write out important abbreviations.

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      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
  7. Real Ultimate Power by Tekfactory · · Score: 1

    Obviously the Power Meals are loaded with Real Ultimate Power, like what Ninjas have. http://www.realultimatepower.net/

    You know Ninjas, that flip out and kill people without warning. Obviously the Power Meal was demonstrating its Real Ultimate Power.

  8. HIV does not cause AIDS? by rleibman · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I don't get this... he can easily convince me that HIV does not cause AIDS... just let himself get injected with a nice shot of the virus... oh, yeah, he believes in alternative medicine. from Tim Minchin: "You know what they call alternative medicine that works?" "Medicine!"

    1. Re:HIV does not cause AIDS? by Akira+Kogami · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Homeopathy has been proven countless, countless times to do absolutely jack-fucking-shit. About five seconds of wiki-ing found this. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874503/?tool=pmcentrez There is nothing ignorant or arrogant about disregarding some ancient bullshit when every single piece of legitimate scientific evidence shows that it's just ancient bullshit.

    2. Re:HIV does not cause AIDS? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      Homeopathy has been proven countless, countless times to do absolutely jack-fucking-shit.

      Countless, countless times? I doubt it. We've got pretty big numbers, I think we could count the times. There is no functional difference between "countless" and "countless, countless". You can either count something or not.

      Furthermore, homeopathy does work. My leg was bitten off by a shark. Fortunately I knew about homeopathy, so I bought some flake at a take away shop, dried a small portion and ground it to powder then diluted it multiple times as per standard homeopathic practice. I wasn't sure whether to drink it or rub it on my stump, so I did both. Now I have both my legs again and don't even walk with a limp.

    3. Re:HIV does not cause AIDS? by netsavior · · Score: 1

      placebo has well documented effects. Homeopathic is just a more expensive placebo. For this reason, there will always be people "treating" serious problems alongside imaginary ones with placebo water.

    4. Re:HIV does not cause AIDS? by RobertM1968 · · Score: 1

      Homeopathy has been proven countless, countless times to do absolutely jack-fucking-shit. About five seconds of wiki-ing found this. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1874503/?tool=pmcentrez There is nothing ignorant or arrogant about disregarding some ancient bullshit when every single piece of legitimate scientific evidence shows that it's just ancient bullshit.

      True (on the homeopathy part), though he is correct on the natural and herbal part.

      Three quarters of plants that provide active ingredients for prescription drugs came to the attention of researchers because of their use in traditional medicine.

      Many of the pharmaceuticals currently available to physicians have a long history of use as herbal remedies, including opium, aspirin, digitalis, and quinine.

      Among the 120 active compounds currently isolated from the higher plants and widely used in modern medicine today, 80 percent show a positive correlation between their modern therapeutic use and the traditional use of the plants from which they are derived.

      More than two thirds of the world's plant species - at least 35,000 of which are estimated to have medicinal value - come from the developing countries.

      At least 7,000 medical compounds in the modern pharmacopoeia are derived from plants.

      An interesting side question... I wonder if the ideas behind homeopathy (In the 16th century the pioneer of chemical medicine Paracelsus declared that small doses of “what makes a man ill also cures him", anticipating homeopathy) are in any way related to current vaccines and their purpose and use in the human body - though a slightly different idea, and very different implementation (in doses or lack thereof) there is a noticeable corollary.

      --
      StarTrekPhase2 - The Five Year Mission Continues!
    5. Re:HIV does not cause AIDS? by millennial · · Score: 1

      "There is a noticeable corollary?" No, there really isn't, since there's actually a measurable amount of a substance in a vaccine and there's a known and valid mechanism for its function. Neither of those is true for homeopathy - plus, it doesn't work.

      As for the bit about herbal medicine: Medicines derived from herbs have been purified and measured into verifiably functional doses. Herbal medicines? Not so much. No requirements for purity, dose size, or function - only safety.

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      I am scientifically inaccurate.
    6. Re:HIV does not cause AIDS? by MoriT · · Score: 1

      Thanks to pharmaceutical advertising placebos are now more effective than some FDA approved drugs. Their effectiveness has been consistently improving!

      The one I find interesting is acupuncture. In what looked like a reasonably well-designed study it was more effective than medication and physical therapy at reducing pain, but so was the "sham" version where they stuck needles into people at random. Apparently humans have evolved to be pin cushions or something.

  9. His name is null? by MichaelSmith · · Score: 1

    Or is it NULL? Either way he should stay away from the Sacramento Credit Union's online banking service.

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    http://michaelsmith.id.au
    1. Re:His name is null? by DarkKnightRadick · · Score: 1

      That's nothing. I have problems with my email address. I was just at the New Patriot Journal and had to use my Yahoo address because they had to have email from a "valid address" (apparently jnagyjr@joseph-a-nagy-jr.us isn't a valid email address, despite me having used it for several years).

      --
      "There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death." Proverbs 16:25 (NKJV)
  10. "Newage" == "sewage" by John+Guilt · · Score: 1

    Three cheers for reductionist rationalist rationalistic analysis and problem-solving that doesn't involve being a somewhat charismatic guy (as G.N. evidently is for some people). In my experience listening to him, his view of a dictatorial, blinkered, medical establishment is more like projection than anything else. (Yes, the medical establishment is sometimes wrong, but I see more self-correction in't than in Mr Null's corpus.)
    As a wise old pot-head observed, 'They laughed at Galileo, but they also laughed at Bozo the Clown.'
    I voted for the pro-Pacifica slate at WBAI _despite_ its being backed by Null....Kakutani's support helped.

  11. Gary Null by DaMattster · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Well, at the very least he used his own product and this shows some measure of responsibilitiy on his part. He did his fiduciary duty to put out a warning and felt obligated to be honest to his customers. This is A LOT better than many of the food and drug companies out there. Most would rather make profits, deny problems, and try to sweep negatives under the carpet.

  12. Blame Adobe, not Microsoft by tepples · · Score: 1

    Even more insiduous is that when MS designed thier symbol font

    As I understand it, it was Adobe's idea to map Greek letter glyphs onto codepoints commonly used for Latin. But then that was before Unicode took off.

  13. bravo! by mister_playboy · · Score: 1

    fantastic testimonial!

    --
    Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law ::: Love is the law, love under will