The deceptive lies by deliberate misinterpretation of science by the CAM community

Via the ever hilarious Zeus mailout I have come across this article from the What Doctors Don’t Tell You site (WDDTY):

It was news when it was first revealed three years ago – and it was news again last week: antioxidant vitamins can speed up the development of cancer. But the researcher who first published the study has now admitted that she got it wrong.

The original study – which made headlines around the world – found that cancer patients who took either vitamin A (beta-carotene) or E (alpha tocopherol) supplements were 40 per cent more likely to suffer a recurrence of their cancer than those who didn’t take any supplements.

Ever since, nutritionists and alternative therapists have been on the back foot, and have tried to defend the antioxidants. But their task was made even tougher last week when the prestigious Cochrane Collaborative released a meta-analysis that suggested that antioxidants may even shorten our life.

But the researchers, led by Isabelle Bairati from the Quebec Research Centre, who published the 2005 study, have re-analysed their original data, and have discovered they got it wrong. The only people in the study who were seeing their cancer return were smokers who refused to kick the habit while they were receiving radiation therapy or chemotherapy.

Now leaving aside the odd inaccuracy such as that beta-carotene is a Vitamin A precursor and not Vitamin A by reading this article you would get the impression that supplementing with vitamin A and E has no effect on cancer recurrence but smoking does and that the researchers were forced into a humiliating retraction. This is merely CAM lies.
If we look at the actual paper (paywalled I’m afraid, copies by request) we see a very different conclusion. Abstract:

There has been concern that the efficacy of radiation therapy may be reduced when patients smoke or take antioxidant vitamins during treatment. Cancer prevention trials with beta carotene supplements documented adverse effects only among smokers. We conducted a randomized trial with alpha tocopherol (400 IU/day) and beta carotene (30 mg/day) supplements among 540 head and neck cancer (HNC) patients treated by radiation therapy. We examined whether smoking during radiation therapy modified the effects of the supplementation on HNC recurrence and on mortality. During the follow-up, 119 patients had a HNC recurrence and 179 died. Cox models were used to test the interaction between smoking and supplementation and to estimate the hazard ratios (HR) for HNC recurrence and death associated with the supplementation. Cigarette smoking either before or after radiation therapy did not modify the effects of the supplementation. In contrast, the interactions between supplementation and cigarette smoking during radiation therapy were statistically significant for HNC recurrence (p = 0.03), all-cause mortality (p = 0.02) and mortality from the initial HNC (p = 0.04). Among cigarette smokers, the HR were 2.41 (95% CI: 1.25-4.64) for recurrence, 2.26 (95% CI: 1.29-3.97) for all-cause mortality and 3.38 (95% CI: 1.11-10.34) for HNC mortality. All corresponding HR among nonsmokers were close to 1. These results could best be explained by the hypothesis that the combined exposures reduced the efficacy of radiation therapy. Particular attention should be devoted to prevent patients from both smoking and taking antioxidant supplements during radiation therapy.

While the authors have had to rethink their original conclusions this is hardly the damning retraction that WDDTY report it as. In fact it very clearly shows that taking vitamin A and E as well as smoking while undergoing treatment is in fact worse than merely just smoking. While the reconsidered evidence from this trial does not appear to show that non-smokers supplementing with vitamin A and E are at greater risk it does not put them at lesser risk either. There is still no benefit to vitamin A and E supplementation during treatment for non-smokers and for smokers it is more harmful than smoking alone. The conclusion is that at best supplementation may do no harm, at worst it is a significant risk factor. WDDTY do not state this, they misrepresent this paper to make it appear like it is smoking alone that is the problem.
WDDTY is frequented by many CAM practitioners who will gain their information from it and pass it on to their customers. It is easy to imagine practitioners telling their patients that these scientists were forced into a humiliating retraction and that supplementation is safe. This would not be true, they would be repeating WDDTY lies.

Shame on WDDTY.