Black victimology: divided we fall

Last Saturday, Baltimore celebrated the 2016 African-American festival. As the celebration continued, I began to reminisce on the conditions of the black family in America. My conclusion was that while we may claim that discrimination still exists in America, the blacks contribute a lot to their current problems. Hence, it is not always smart to blame the whites or the police each time a black person trips over a banana peel. For instance, if Freddie Gray had stayed away from crime, he will still be alive today.

Each time people talk about the situation of the black Americans(or African-Americans), words like ‘poverty’, ‘single mothers’, ‘drugs’, ‘crime’ ‘racism’, ‘white supremacy’ and ‘discrimination’ pop up. After celebrating the 2016 African-American festival last weekend, it is time for blacks (for your information, I am black too) to realize that they have a big problem, which is that their ‘entitlement’ mindset (I have the right to this or the right to that, and so on), their dependency culture and the breakdown of the black family is at the heart of the terrible conditions they face in America. As soon as they start to realize that their destiny lies entirely in their own hands, their situation will begin to change.

This does not mean that blacks in America do not encounter institutional challenges in their lives. Far from it! For instance, the Baltimore riots of 2015 were sparked by the death of Freddie Gray, a black man in police custody.¹ However, the underlying cause of the riots was more complex than that: it is a built-up hostility against the establishment who, the blacks believed, have betrayed them.

Broadly speaking, many Americans feel a confused sense of guilt each time media reports and activists make public the problems of poor black neighborhoods in America. This is because they are unsure whether the persistence of crime and poverty in these black neighborhoods is in some way their fault or the fault of the residents of the affected neighborhoods. For instance, it is true that the police are sometimes racist. On the other hand, there are cases of tensions between blacks and cops even in cities with black mayors, black police chiefs, and a mostly non-white police force, such as Baltimore City. This proved that the police and government functionaries are not always racists.  As a matter of fact, shortly after last year’s Baltimore riots, six police officers were indicted for abusing Freddie Gray and on charges that include second-degree murder. Of these, three were black officers.²

About fifty-one years ago, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a former bureaucrat in the U.S. Department of Labor, made a bold and controversial attempt to explain what has gone wrong in America’s inner cities, which are mainly occupied by the black Americans. In his report at the time, popularly known as “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action”, Moynihan argued that the lingering effects of two centuries of slavery had significantly weakened and destabilized the black family in America. At the time of the release of the Moynihan report, about 25 percent of black babies were born to unmarried mothers. According to him, family instability was the main cause of many other problems faced by black families, from crime to poverty.³

Fifty-one years after the publication of the report, there is still little improvement in the situations faced by black Americans. When viewed in the light of the predictors of success in America(such as education, employment, life expectancy, the general standard of living, and so on), black Americans still fares badly. Basically, if African-American’s black community and neighborhoods were a separate country, it would have a higher proportion of its citizens behind bars than anywhere on earth, a worse life expectancy than Mexico, and a worse homicide rate than Ivory Coast.⁴ In spite of this overall America still has the richest and the most successful populations of blacks of African descent in the world.

Not only that: today, America is not as racist as it was during Moynihan’s day, when interracial marriage was illegal in 19 states of the country. America also has as a black president – Barack Obama. And it is a known fact that President Obama won the largest share of white support of any Democrat in any two-man race since 1976.⁵ The type of census forms we have in America today allows people to identify themselves as white and black too. About 2 million people did so in 2010, which is a significant improvement compared to what we have in the segregation era.

Yet an updated Moynihan report will definitely acknowledge the fact that the conditions of white Americans is still better than that of the blacks. More than four decades after the publication of his report in 1965, the proportion of African-American babies born outside marriage has exceeded 72 percent.⁶ According to the FBI, while the crime rate in America has fallen in the past two decades(a situation that cast some doubt on Moynihan’s claim on the link between single-parenting and disorder), black Americans are still eight times more likely to be murdered than whites. Also, black Americans are seven times more likely to commit murder than whites.⁷ A large number of black men in their 30s (about one-third of them) have been in prison. In addition, blacks are less socially mobile than whites, and they are also less likely to graduate from college.⁸

In the past, historians disagreed with Moynihan’s claim that linked slavery with the fragility of the black family; but many of them now believe in this theory. There is documentary evidence that every black population in Americas today has low rates of two-parent families.⁹ Certainly, we do not expect a race or  a group  that have many generations in which they are not permitted to have a relationship, in which they have no custodial rights to their children or spouse and their family members can be sold away, not to disintegrate? Yet what happened in the 19^th century alone cannot provide the most reliable explanation of why the modern-day black families have become so fragmented since the 1960s; nor why the proportion of white children born out of wedlock has grown as high as the black ones. This means that in as much as slavery may have started the dissolution of the black family, something else must have worsened the problem.

Some argue that welfare should be blamed for the disintegration of the black family, simply because the nationwide decline in marriage in America began at around the same time as Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society programs.  Social conservatives lament that for many American families, the welfare check(cheque) has replaced the male breadwinners, making them unneeded and irrelevant members of the family. To make things worse, even those single mothers who chose to tie the knot with their men are often penalized by the welfare department, since the addition of a father’s income to the household total income may cause their welfare benefits to be withdrawn.  Some studies, however, had looked at how marriage varies between states with different rules on eligibility for Medicaid – one of the largest welfare programs in America. These studies failed to find a link between welfare and the disintegration of black families in America.¹⁰ This does not mean that welfare played no role in dissolving America’s black families. Indeed, welfare does have some effects, but it’s not the main thing.

Fragmentation nation

Some experts argue that the collapse of the black family is largely caused by the slumping wages earned by unskilled black men. Since the wages of the unskilled black men are low, they are less attractive as mates to the ladies. The problem with this argument is that, like the previous one, it can only be a partial explanation. Generally speaking, Americans of all stripes are more likely to get married if their incomes rise.  But, even among the high income and middle-class Americans, in terms of marriage and staying married, black families look different from white ones. The percentage of black women with advanced degrees that are single mothers is higher than the percentage of single white women with advanced degrees.  To put this in perspective, the percentage of single black women with advanced degrees is approximately equivalent to that of single white women with a high school diploma. According to the available published evidence,  when black families income rises above $200,000 per year, the gap between them and the white families disappears.¹¹ However, only a tiny minority of the black population reaches that income level.

Low marriage rate among African-Americans can also be explained by another important factor: the black men are basically ‘missing in action.’ By this, I mean that many of them have either died early(almost every night, our news media carry breaking news of shootouts involving mainly black men and or black gangs) or are in prison. According to the New York Times, for every 100 non-incarcerated African-American women aged 25-54, there are only about 83 black men. This is a sharp contrast of what we have for the white population, which hardly has any gap at all: for every 100 non-incarcerated white women, there are 99 white men.¹²

A study of inner-city single mothers by Kathy Edin, a sociologist at John Hopkins University revealed some astonishing results. Many of the single mothers she interviewed during the study told her that having a baby helped them to hold on to a boyfriend and to have a purpose in life. The men he spoke to during the study told her that fatherhood can be a source of pride.¹³ That may be scant comfort for the children of such unions.

It is only a slight exaggeration to say that growing up in a single-parent family is not a good experience for most children. Researchers at Princeton and Columbia universities run a program known as the ‘Fragile Families’ study.¹⁴ Under this program, they examined how children born to single mothers fare. According to their recent analysis, about 30 percent of the children born to single mothers have had two or more father figures in their homes by the time they are five years old. At a 40 percent poverty rate, the households headed by single mothers are poorer than that headed by two-parent, where the poverty rate is only 9 percent. If we consider the type of neighborhoods where most black families live, it is only natural to assume that the percentages will be higher for the black population.

It is worth bearing in mind that most of the black Americans who live below the poverty line are the left-behinds of two great internal migrations. The first internal migration, in which a large number of blacks moved from the south to the north occurred in the early 20^th century. The migrating black population left behind people in the Mississippi Delta, and to this day, that part of America has remained the poorest region in the country. More recently, a second migration is going on. Lots of people are moving from the northern cities to the southern ones. Georgia, for instance, has attracted more black migrants than any other state in the past two decades. With this small exodus of blacks, many blacks are left behind in highly segregated northern cities. A good example of the areas with a significant population of the left-behinds is West Baltimore, where 96 percent of blacks live.¹⁵ The surprising thing is that of all the ethnic groups in America, the African-Americans are the least likely to move even though a large number of them live in the most benighted places in the country.

Other left-behind neighborhoods can be found in New York, Milwaukee, Chicago, Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Detroit, among others. These places have an interesting history: black migrants were funneled into them in the mid-20^th century under racist housing policies. The first city to formalize residential segregation by race was Baltimore. After Baltimore, the other cities soon followed.

In 1942, about 84 percent of white Americans told pollsters the Negros should be placed in separate sections of major cities. The fact that that was a period when black GIS are preparing to go to war did not change their opinion in that regard. De jure racial segregation is now old news in America, and since 1970 de facto segregation has declined. However, the rate of decline varies from city to city. For instance, on a scale where "0" means blacks are evenly distributed and "100" means they live completely separately(and anything above 60 is high), Chicago scores 76, New York 78 and Milwaukee 82.¹⁶

A Baltimore native(an African-American) who asked not to be named in this article grew up in one of the affected neighborhoods. He basically grew up in a house passed down by his grandmother to his mother. According to him, his neighborhood is one of those localities where gunfire began as soon as the sunset. His was the type of neighborhood in Baltimore City where people throw big parties when someone gets out of jail, but do nothing when a resident graduates from college. He recalls one particular night of terror: that night he started hearing shots in the street outside but did not bother to look outside, only to discover the next morning that his best friend’s cousin had been killed. Another friend of his was also shot to death in a nearby basketball court for no clear reason. Fortunately, he was among the lucky ones: he graduated from college with a bachelor’s degree in education and is now one of the best teachers in Baltimore city.

Life stories such as his are not common. As was reported in The Economist, Karl Alexander and his colleagues at John Hopkins University conducted a study in which they followed 790 six-year-olds who entered Baltimore public schools in 1982 for 22 years. The results of their study were lamentable: only about 4 percent of the kids in low-income families where the parents had a combined total of ten years’ schooling graduated from college.¹⁷

The house which the Baltimore native I mentioned earlier inherited from his mother now has more than ten boarded-up properties for neighbors. In some areas such as West Baltimore, whole blocks have gone. Not only that, a large number of houses is worth nothing, particularly those which the owners owe property taxes. Overall, the crime rate in Baltimore City, where the blacks comprised of 62.9 percent of the population,²⁰ is high. According to the Baltimore Sun, by the end of 2015, the homicide rate in Baltimore City topped 30-40 per month.²¹ Most of the homicides occurred in West Baltimore, where the majority of the residents(about 44,000) were black.²²

The gap between the incomes of black and white families is large enough. However, the wealth gap is even larger. I will use the median income of these two groups as an illustration: According to the data published by the Pew Research Center, a think tank,  the median white families has net assets of about $141,900 in 2013; while the median black family has a paltry $11,000.²³ It should be noted here that wealth gaps are nearly always bigger than income gaps, for obvious reasons: people who earn more can save more. For the black families, this problem is often worsened by the absence of fathers. Generally speaking, a one-parent family with the same income as a two-parent family often spends more of its extra income on child care.

Under such circumstances, saving money is extremely hard. This explains why it is harder for black families to buy a house than white families of the same income. It also explains why black university students rack up larger debts than their white counterparts. Only about 40 percent of black students who enrolled in colleges complete a four-year degree in six years. For whites, the proportion is 63 percent.²⁴ In some cases, some black students need to look after a sibling or work to support their families. In others, they cannot afford the books or the bus fare to attend classes. One black lady I know said it all: she started off wanting to be a nurse. But now all she’s concerned about is how to eat the next day.

Make a new plan, Shawntae

This highlights a deeper question: suppose the black Americans in the worst neighborhoods were given a chance to move out? How about if they are provided with more opportunities to better their lives? The answer is that these have already been done in many places. In my life, I have never seen a country that has as many generous social programs for helping the poor as America. Just think of food stamps, cash assistance, grants for college education, housing programs for the poor, and so on, and you will begin to see my point. For instance, after they were taken to court in 1966 for building all its public housing in areas that were wholly black, the Chicago city government decided to do something to compensate the affected population: it provided vouchers for about 7,500 families to move to nicer (and whiter) neighborhoods of the city and its suburbs. The state of the beneficiary families was studied 15-20 years later, with good results: the families affected still live in their new neighborhoods. Not only that, their children were attending better schools and doing much  better when compared to the children of those families who stayed behind.²⁵

The federal government tried to copy this scheme in other cities after the Los Angeles riots of 1992. The results were mixed: those who moved out of public housing in crime-infested neighborhoods showed lower rates of diabetes than those who remained. In addition, the mothers who moved showed an increase in happiness that can be compared to the effects of the antidepressant called Prozac. However, after moving, their children’s performance was not better than that of those whose mothers stayed behind, and the mothers did not get better jobs.²⁶

I do not believe that it is the duty of the government to put broken black families together. Of course, the families need government support to stay together, but the bulk of the work must be done by the families themselves. To be frank, the white folk did not make the black people to have babies when they were still teenagers and could barely wash their school uniforms; they also did not force the black folks to drop out of school or to engage in criminal activities. This means that a lot of the problems the blacks are facing today are the results of the decision-making they are responsible for. In my view, black families are stronger and made a lot more progress during the segregation era than they have in this age of modern liberalism. Just think of it: it is during that time that strong and well-respected black people like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Booker T. Washington, and Jesse Jackson, among many others, emerged. Also, the black culture of that time was nowhere near as self-destructive as it is today. This simple fact alone belies the claims being made by many black people I spoke to that white supremacy, the government or even discrimination is the root cause of their current problems.

It is true: the whites may bear the burden of oppressing the blacks over the years through slavery and institutionalized racism(and shame to them for doing that) but the whites deserves some credits for ending such practices as well. I said this because many whites also fought, editorialized, protested, organized, and even voted to end these practices in America. Thus, fairness compels me to admit that the whites or the government did not cause the decline of the good black culture, and hence the whites or the government cannot fix it. In other words, it is the duty of the black people to decide where they want to be, decide the steps they need to take to get there, and then get to work. Blaming all their problems and ills on the whites or the government, to me, is nothing more than a way to avoid accepting responsibility for their own actions and decisions. One thing is for certain: they can change their collective fate if they take those three simple steps. In contrast, their current circumstances will not change if they don’t take those simple steps. It is as simple as that. All the wailing and blaming of the white people or the government, or even the police won’t make any difference in their lives.

References

¹Black America: The Fire and the Fuel. (2015, May 9). The Economist.  Retrieved June 29, 2016 from http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21650533-what-dead-white-man-can-teach-america-about-inner-city-decay-fire-and-fuel

²Ibid, p.23

³Moynihan, D. P. (1997). The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (1965). African American Male Research.

⁴Black America: The Fire and the Fuel, op. cit., p.23

⁵Kuhn, D.P.(2008). Exit Polls: How Obama Won. Politico. Retrieved June 29, 2016 from http://www.politico.com/story/2008/11/exit-polls-how-obama-won-015297

⁶Jacobson L.(2013). CNN’s Don Lemon Says More Than 72 Percent of African-American Births Are Out of Wedluck. Politifact. Retrieved June 29, 2016 from http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2013/jul/29/don-lemon/cnns-don-lemon-says-more-72-percent-african-americ/

⁷Saxena V. (2015). Fact: Blacks Murder More Whites Than Whites Murder Blacks. Downtrend. Retrieved June 29, 2016 from http://downtrend.com/vsaxena/blacks-murder-more-whites-than-whites-murder-blacks

⁸Black America: The Fire and the Fuel, op. cit., p.24

⁹Williams, W.E. (2015). The True Black Tragedy: Illegitimacy Rate of Nearly 75%. CNS News. Retrieved June 30, 2016 from http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/walter-e-williams/true-black-tragedy-illegitimacy-rate-nearly-75

¹⁰Black America: The Fire and the Fuel, op. cit., p.24-26

¹¹Ibid

¹²Wolfers J., Leonhardt D., & Quealy K.  (2015, April 20). The Upshort: 1.5 Million Missing Black Men. New York Times. Retrieved July 7, 2016 from http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/20/upshot/missing-black-men.html?_r=0

¹³Black America: The Fire and the Fuel, op. cit., p.24-26

¹⁴Ibid

¹⁵Ibid

¹⁶Ibid

¹⁷Ibid

²⁰Baltimore City, Maryland (2015). Quick Facts. U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved July 4, 2016 from https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/24510

²¹Rector, K. (2016, January 1). Deadliest Year in Baltimore History Ends With 344 Homicides. Baltimore Sun. Retrieved July 4, 2016 from http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-deadliest-year-20160101-story.html

²²City Data (2016). West Baltimore Neighborhood in Baltimore, Maryland: 21223, 21216 and 21217 Detailed Profile. Retrieved July 4, 2016 from http://www.city-data.com/neighborhood/West-Baltimore-Baltimore-MD.html

²³Kochhar R. & Fry R. (2014). Fact Tank: News in the Numbers. Pew Research Center. Retrieved July 4, 2016 from http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/12/12/racial-wealth-gaps-great-recession/

²⁴Black America: The Fire and the Fuel, op. cit., p.24-26

²⁵Ibid

²⁶Ibid

Buhari, we need to talk

President Buhari need to understand that if barking orders at markets did not work in the 1983-1985 era, it will not work now either. In as much as he is right that devaluation will precipitate inflation, his current policy of limiting imports and creating artificial scarcity will be even more inflationary. A weaker currency would revamp domestic production and spur growth more than import bans can, and will hurt Nigerian consumers less in the long run.

“At home we face enormous challenges,” said President Muhammadu Buhari during his 2015 inaugural speech as Nigeria’s newly elected president.¹ I think he is right. When he came to power in a military coup more than 30 years ago, the country he inherited was a mess: the economy was collapsing due to falling oil prices and its treasury was looted by pilfering politicians. During that period, which spanned through 1983 to 1985, Nigeria’s export earnings fell by more than 50 percent. The Nigerian economy went into deep recession and, while he was trying to restore public accountability and re-establish a dynamic economy, he was overthrown in a coup.²

Last year, Muhamadu Buhari won a fair election to become Nigerian president again. The problems he has inherited are, to a very large extent, identical to what he had more than 30 years ago:  oil prices have slumped, from $64 a barrel in February 2015 when Buhari’s government came to power to about $32 today. The country’s growth rate fell from 6.3 percent to about 3 percent, a value that is almost half the rate of 2014 and is also barely enough to keep pace with Nigeria’s population. The country’s stock market is also down by almost 50 percent of its peak in the year 2014. It should be noted here that as much as 70 percent of Nigerian government’s revenue comes from oil. Not only that, oil accounts for 95 percent of the country’s export earnings. Given that the country’s economy swoons along with oil price, the government deficit will widen this year to about 3.5 percent of GDP if oil price continues to fall. The country’s currency, the naira, is under pressure: as of last week, the dollar sells for 300 naira or more in the black market, even though the central bank insisted on an exchange rate of 179-199 naira to the dollar.³

When it comes to the naira, the appropriate policy would have been to allow it to depreciate to reflect the country’s loss of purchasing power. Doing this will boost domestic demand since exports will become cheaper and more competitive to foreign buyers – a factor that can create jobs in the export sector. In addition, allowing the naira to depreciate will help to increase export volumes and aggregate demand which will, in turn, improve the country’s current account deficits and its economic growth rate.⁴ Buhari’s government, however, have a different plan: The central bank is trying to keep the naira aloft by restricting the supply of dollars and by banning the import of a long list of goods, from toothpicks to shovels and rice. Their logic for this approach is that banning certain imports will help the government to maintain its foreign reserves as well as stimulate domestic production.⁵

Ideally, when a country devalues its currency, all imports becomes expensive. But under Buhari’s systems, imports are restricted by government fiat, which makes it artificial. So far, the restrictions on imports makes it very difficult for factory bosses to import key raw materials such as chemicals. This means that some of these factories may be forced to shut down if this trend continues. Many of them has no other choice but to turn to the black market to obtain dollars.⁶ And it will not be an exaggeration to say that they might also be smuggling in some of the goods that have been banned by the Buhari’s government.

As every economist will tell you, history is usually a good place to look for answers. Buhari’s current economic model is not new to Nigerians. As a matter of fact, Buhari did something similar around 1983-1985 - the last time he was president. At that time, he rejected the option of devaluation and the result was catastrophic: the country’s supply of foreign currency depleted significantly and Buhari responded by rationing it and by slashing imports by more than half, just like he is doing now. This pushed Nigerian businesses to turn to the black market for foreign exchange. Buhari’s response this time was more draconian: he sealed the country’s borders. With limited access to foreign exchange, Nigerian businesses could not imports vital raw materials, which decreased their volume of trade and forced many to lay off their staff. With the country facing a surging unemployment at the time, Buhari expelled 700,000 migrants.⁷

President Buhari need to understand that if barking orders at markets did not work in the 1983-1985 era, it will not work now either. In as much as he is right that devaluation will precipitate inflation (as it has in other countries that make their money by digging stuff from the ground), his current policy of limiting imports and creating artificial scarcity will be even more inflationary. A weaker currency would revamp domestic production and stimulate growth more than import bans can, and will hurt Nigerian consumers less in the long run. What is certain is that Nigeria needs foreign capital to finance its deficit. From a realistic perspective, the country will struggle to get any under Buhari government’s current policies. Foreign investors, who are already nervous over Nigeria’s economy and political situation, assume that any of the country’s assets they buy in naira now will cost less later after the currency has devalued. Since investing in any Nigerian asset now will expose them to foreign exchange risks and potential loss of value, a lot of them are pulling out from naira-denominated assets, which include stocks and bonds.

What Buhari must do now

Many of the things Mr. Buhari has done so far are in some ways very impressive. In the northern Nigeria, which was overrun by Boko Haram jihadists, he has restored a semblance of security. He is winning the battle against corruption, which had flourished under the previous president, Goodluck Jonathan – an ineffective buffoon who allowed Nigerian politicians and their friends to dip their fingers into public funds with impunity. Some of his economic policies are laudable too. For instance, he is trying to use a mildly expansionary budget to stimulate the economy. His proposal to remove the fuel subsidy and sell petroleum products at market prices is equally commendable.⁸ With fair justification, his move in that regard is indeed a brave one, given that fuel subsidies are popular in Nigeria, even though they have produced nothing but disaster: the cheap fuel are often smuggled out of the country and sold at the neighboring countries while Nigeria’s petrol stations frequently stay dry.

My argument here is simple: Buhari should continue with his bold stance and implement more sound economic policies, since at this time, Nigeria’s economic success cannot co-exist with political weakness. In line with this he should apply the same boldness that made him to let petroleum products cost what the market says it should to the management of the naira, the Nigerian currency. Simply put, he should allow the naira to gradually depreciate so as to improve Nigeria’s export competitiveness and trade deficit. He should also reduce the size of the government.  Nigeria is a country where the government has a strangle hold on the key sectors of the economy, especially on the energy, railway and the seaports – a situation that leads to corruption, gross inefficiency and loss of significant revenue from these sectors. President Buhari may be unlucky in the sense that he became the president at the time when Nigeria is going through a near-death experience with respect to its economy. However, Nigerians can forgive him for being unlucky if he can implement policies that can create jobs and give the country’s economy the shock it needed to spark a period of urgently needed economic growth and development.

References

¹President Buhari’s Inaugural Speech . (2015, May 29). Vanguard.  Retrieved March 1, 2016 from http://www.vanguardngr.com/2015/05/read-president-buhari-inaugural-speech/.

²1983 Coup. (2016). Global Security. Retrieved March 1, 2016 from http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/war/nigeria2.htm.

³Nigeria's Economy: Hope the Naira Falls. (2016, January 30). The Economist, p. 10.

⁴Pettinger T. (2013). Advantages and Disadvantages of Devaluation. Economics Help. Retrieved March 1, 2016 from http://www.economicshelp.org/blog/1299/economics/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-devaluation/

⁵Nigeria's Economy: Hope the Naira Falls, op. cit., p.10

⁶Ibid

⁷Associated Press(1985, May 5). Expelled Foreigners Pouring Out of Nigeria. New York Times, pp. Retrieved March 1, 2016 from http://www.nytimes.com/1985/05/05/world/expelled-foreigners-pouring-out-of-nigeria-by-the-associated-press.html.

⁸Nigeria's Economy: Hope the Naira Falls, op. cit., p.10

Teaching in America: Things I discovered when I became a college professor

To the general public, professors enjoys working condition that is cozy and civilized, with a lot less stress than most jobs in America. But, as a foreigner teaching in  America, I discovered that the reality can be as romantic as a marriage of convenience: unless they have tenure or are teaching full time, America’s college professors have the job security of zero-hour contract workers, the social life of hermit,s and the job stress of brain surgeons.

It is fashionable to romanticize college professors. The U.S. media celebrate the academic  geniuses who use their ideas, research and knowledge to change the world. Politicians praise them as  knowledge creators. To the general public, professors enjoys working condition that is cozy and civilized, with a lot less stress than most jobs in America. But, as a foreigner teaching in  America, I discovered that the reality can be as romantic as a marriage of convenience: unless they have tenure or are teaching full time, America’s college professors have the job security of zero-hour contract workers, the social life of hermits and the job stress of brain surgeons. And those professors who teach only part-time at American colleges (usually called the adjunct professors) have money worries of chronic gamblers. I still remember those years when I was an adjunct professor (I was an adjunct professor for five years before I started teaching full time).  During those years, I had to teach at least 7 classes at three(sometimes, even four) different universities just to put food on my table and meet my other financial needs and obligations. My car was basically my office in those years. My typical day goes this way: I will teach Algebra in the morning on one campus and Statistics in the afternoon in another campus. Then in the evening I will drive down in a rush to the third university to teach an MBA class. By the time I get home and complete my grading  late in the night, I’m already burned out even though I had to repeat the same ritual the next day.  Those of us who are lucky enough to eventually get full time teaching appointments  are also  overworked and leisure starved but we  still love the job,  simply because we see teaching as a vocation, and we do get enormous personal fulfillment in transmitting knowledge to the next generation.

What do I exactly know about teaching in America?

When I came to America some years ago I knew that I will face challenges working as a college professor,  simply because  it is a new environment and a new culture. I did my undergraduate work at Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, in Nigeria, and my master’s  and doctorate at University of Phoenix (Arizona) and Walden University respectively, both of which are in America. It was during my graduate school days that I learned the challenges of teaching in American universities and colleges. Much of the American university system, especially in terms of expectations for both faculty and students and the basic classroom norms, are naturally unfamiliar to me at the start of my teaching career in America. This added more challenges to an already imposing task.

Start with the first semester. Generally speaking, my first semester as a university professor in America was ruthlessly demanding. I had to construct the course syllabus (by the way the course syllabus in America is more voluminous than what we have back home), read, write lecture plans and create teaching notes, deliver the lecture and do lots of grading, office hours and professional development workshops. At first, I was assigned to teach only math classes (mainly Algebra and Statistics). However, it wasn’t too long before I started teaching Macroeconomics, Finance and Introduction to Business classes as well.

One of the biggest challenges I faced came from the students themselves. Without putting it in so many words, American students were not at all like those I had encountered during my undergraduate days back home. For a start, their understanding of the relationship between the student and the professor is entirely different from what we have back home. But I am happy  to say a lot of them were delightfully polite. But since I am teaching Mathematics classes, the most hated classes in the campus, I must also confess that I have equally met lots of nasty students as well.

Americans were known to have independent personalities. But when it comes to learning mathematics, majority of their students were quite dependent learners. So I won’t say that I was too surprised that their first reaction upon encountering a math question was usually to lean on me. Sincerely speaking, I have lost count of the number of times my students contacted me, in many cases very late at night, to ask questions that I have already provided the answers very clearly in the course syllabus. One student called me at 1:33 am to ask the type of calculator and textbook needed for the class. All of these are very different from what we had during my undergraduate days in Nigeria. In those days, we literally worship our professors and we certainly avoid asking questions that would make them to conclude that we weren’t up to scratch.

My solution to all these was to try to get the students to take more ownership of their learning and invest in themselves. How did I do this? First, for any given class session, I only teach half of the time. The remaining half the students will be on their own, working on the questions I gave them from the topics we covered during the session. I even let them work together while solving those questions so they can learn from each other. When they complete the questions, I check each of the students’ work, give them the participation grade for the day and let them go, while instructing them to continue to practice at home.

Another challenge I had  with the students was my accent: many of my student often tell me that my ‘British’ accent is really hard to understand. Well, I was already thirty one years before I came to America so it is really difficult (or almost impossible) for me to change my accent. Thank God I teach mainly Mathematics and Finance which doesn’t require much grammar! In any case I soon realized that, to improve my students’ learning experiences and outcomes, I needed to connect better with them so as to make them trust their strange-talking professor (me). To that end, during the first three weeks of each semester, I usually ask my students questions about their perception of my class – things like how they feel about the class now that we have completed some weeks of the semester. My most encouraging finding was that my questions proved invaluable. The responses I got from the students were basically consistent: they want me to talk more slowly and to stop putting so much into each lecture. Well, talking more slowly I can live with. But putting less topics into each lecture I cannot do since I had to go by the syllabus provided by the university. In any case , I did made some desired adjustments to my teaching methods, which in turn earned me a bit of good will that I could trade to get the students to do the things I really cared about (like maintaining a good attendance and participating actively in the class). In addition, I encouraged them to come and see me during my office hours but unfortunately most of them do not show up.

My other surprises were more vexing. The students’ mathematical skills fell far short of my expectations. Many of them had  difficulty solving arithmetic problems like percentages, fractions, decimals and basic geometry, which in turn had a major impact on their ability to understand the basic concepts of Algebra and Statistics. On the basis of my tortuous grading experiences alone, I can infer that the U.S. high school system is passing the buck on the development of basic arithmetic skills to higher education. On one of the tests I graded last semester, the student did virtually nothing: he left most of the questions blank and on the last page he wrote “I have no clue Dr Ojih – I haven’t done Math for fifteen years!”

With these too “deep-seated” shortcomings on the part of the students, I knew it would be a challenge for me to make a serious dent in their learning outcomes. In any case, I tried anyhow. For instance, in my Algebra classes, I always spend the first week of the semester  teaching such topics as the “Review of Real Numbers”,   “ Variables and Expressions”, “Like and Unlike Terms,”  and so on.  In addition to the class practice questions (which I grade right there in the classroom in the presence of the students), I usually give my first tests early in the semester so I could give students extensive and timely feedback on exactly what I expect from them. The class practice questions which the students solve in the class while working together in groups had one major benefit: it reduces test anxiety and made the students feel more comfortable about what was expected of them in the final grades. This is important because American students cares about grades a lot. And I mean a lot, for real. In one particular semester (I think it was the Fall of 2012, I can’t remember anymore) I tried one strategy that I thought would help identify knowledge gaps as well as serve as a wake up call for slackers in my class: In the first four weeks of that semester, I  gave two tests on the lecture material, cumulatively worth only 10 percent. The students, most of who had an allergy to tests, found it all overwhelming. Some of them who got, say, 4 out of 10 on the test were very anxious and worried. Many of them went on and complained to the Chair of my Department that I was wearing them down with tests. One of the students, who got 3 out of 10, told me in a tearful voice (she actually implored me) that if she didn’t get an A  in this class she wouldn’t get into the Nursing program at the college. I explained to  her that these tests  carried limited weight and showed her exactly where she was falling short, so that she can prepare for subsequent tests, homework and the final exam. But alas! All my explanations made no difference to her.

The above explanations reflected a fundamental difference in our experiences of education back home. Going to a university in Nigeria (I attended Nnamdi Azikiwe University Awka, Nigeria) and spending what was, when compared to America, a very small  amount of money in tuition, books and boarding each year, I saw going to college as an extraordinary opportunity. I knew this student was spending well over $12,000 a year in tuition, books and other school expenses, but in her eyes the equation is quite different: to her, money buys opportunity. She felt that after committing such a huge amount in tuition and books, she had already contributed the input. So now, she expected the output. In as much as this kind of mindset is distorted to me, I do see where she was coming from. In any case, I did scrap the early tests in subsequent semesters. I now give only two tests in a semester. The rest of the course assignments include homework, class practice and final exam.

The way American students developed their world views was the final major difference from my experiences teaching in America. Growing up in Nigeria, we did not rationally believe that Nigeria was the center of the world, but rather that it is a country located inside the continent called Africa. In other words, it is composed one small, quirky part of the world. In contrast, my students in America tended to see things in a relentlessly American-centric fashion. Simply put, their knowledge of ideas, places, events and people outside the United State is surprisingly limited. Six years ago, one of my students asked me this question: “Professor, Nelson Mandela is the President of Africa, right?” As you can see, it is only a slight exaggeration to say that I naturally felt that if I don’t make my American students to confront the preconceptions about how the world worked, then who in their lives would? The good part, though, was that I found that they loved being pushed to think in entirely new ways and engage with new horizons – a good quality that made me think more about the rigidities of my own mindset, too.

Stooping to conquer

Looking back, I knew I would never have gotten through it all without help from my professional colleagues, which include other professors and faculty members. They were very unstinting in sharing syllabus and helpful tips during faculty meetings, workshops and seminars. Many of the Deans and department chairs in some campuses put up with my lateness in submitting final grades and other documents during the grading seasons. On the positive side, I made significant improvements every semester. Like edits in an essay, my revised lectures, especially in my Statistics classes, were always more concise and focused. And in my Finance classes, my updated PowerPoints were always better at showing the key calculations  instead of just telling them. In my Algebra classes, I began relying less on notes and walking around the class more.

For me, the most encouraging thing is that I love my job. The benefits of teaching for my research were unmistakable: it provided me the chance to learn and investigate issues and topics that I finds interesting. Not only that, teaching provided a never-ending flow of new ideas – a factor that pushed me to think in new direction about my dormant book project. The fact that there is relatively no structure on the topics that I can research or learn about forced me to read broadly, which in turn provided me wonderful ways to impact lives and make a difference in the world one student at a time, particularly as it relates to helping students understand difficult concepts and problems.  

The food supplement industry: the hype continues.

While consumers spends billions of dollars every year on vitamins and food supplements in hopes of improving their health and fitness, many of these products lack scientific evidence to back up their purported health claims. Consumers can just cut out the supplement industry by eating decently and exercising regularly.

This is obviously a glorious time for the supplement industry, with more than half of U.S. adults popping vitamins, minerals, herbs  and elixirs. According to the available published evidence, retail sales of vitamins and nutritional supplements reached $28.1 billion  in 2010.¹ And between 2009 and 2014, worldwide value of retail sales of these products reached $88 billion.² This is a good news for both the small and the large producers. Take Otsuka Pharmaceuticals of Japan. The company is the owner of Pharmvite,  which churns out 15 billion pills per year. Other pharma giants from America and Germany, including Pfizer and Bayer, are also big peddlers of multivitamins.³

On the minus side, however, the industry seems besieged. First, there are concerns about the accuracy of the claims they make. The U.S. Department of Justice has accused Bayer Corporation for illegally promoting the effects of its probiotic, a supplement that it claimed helps to defend against symptoms like bloating, diarrhea and constipation.⁴ The company’s management is currently waiting for the  court ruling on the issue. Last month, America’s Federal Trade Commission held a workshop to evaluate advertising for over-the-counter homeopathic products.⁵ Yet, a lot of people as well as government agencies still worry the safety of these products. America’s Food and Drug Administration(FDA) mailed warning letters to firms selling pure caffeine  last  September. Their reason was that these firms sells pure caffeine products   that are highly concentrated, with one teaspoon of their products containing much of the stuff as, say, 28 cups of coffee. A large number of supplement makers sells products that were  illegally branded as food “supplements” even though they contain BMPEA – a stimulant similar to amphetamine. The supplement makers in this group have also received several warning letters from  FDA last April. In addition to the constant warnings, surveillance and sanctions they  receive from the regulators, the supplement industry are also in the radar of the law firms: numerous lawsuits are in the works, on everything from protein powders said to lack protein to allegedly dangerous diet pills.6

In spite of these attacks, the food supplements industry seems to has a good immune system of its own. Basically, the unique environment in which the industry operate – an environment characterized by lax regulation, potent marketing and millions of credulous consumers keen to pin their hopes of a healthier life on a pill – has catapulted it to prominence, making it a national sensation. Hence it is not an exaggeration to say here that the food supplement industry has proven time and again that it is very  resilient.

The United States, with its loyal consumers and uniquely helpful regulations, seems to be the industry’s honeypot. Though growth has slowed, the value of retail sales of vitamins and nutritional supplements in United States reached a record $32.8 billion last year.7 The Nutrition Business Journal is considered to be an authority when it comes to providing information about the industry – information  relating to the trends, operation tactics, products and consumer concerns. As was reported in the publication, dietary supplement sales in United States grew 7.5 percent to $34.8 billion in 2013(as noted in New Hope 360).⁸

The “vitamin” club

Catherine Price, an assistant professor at the University of Florida said it all in her book Vitamania – Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection: America’s craze for food supplements started in the 1930s and 1940s.⁹ At that time, scientists validated the claim that vitamins are chemicals that can perform vital functions in the body. Hence pills containing vitamins are widely seen as magic pills that can boost soldiers and work alike. Soon scientist perfected the methods for synthesizing vitamins in factories rather than being extracted from nature. This important feat made vitamins to be cheaper and widely used. Following this medical trajectory, Linus Pauling, who was awarded a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954,¹⁰ popularized the invalid claim that  vitamin C could prevent colds and cure cancer. Nevertheless, it was government regulations that gave the supplement industry the biggest boost. The FDA considered new rules for supplements’ health claims in the 1990s. With this development, the major players in the industry understood there were billions of dollars at stake. Their lobbyists sensationalized the issue thereby making access to food supplement an issue of personal liberty. Their major achievement in that regard was phenomenal: if bureaucrats regulates access to vitamins, it would mean that they are robbing Americans the freedom to care for themselves.¹¹

See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

The outcome of their activities was clear: a new law was passed to cover not only vitamins and minerals, but also botanicals, pills made from animal organs, amino acids, enzymes and metabolites. A 1994 law also made life more easier for the supplement industry: it allowed them to sell supplements without requiring FDA’s approval for efficacy or safety. The rule also authorized producers of food supplements to tout their health benefits. According to the provisions of the rule, these firms cannot claim that the pills they market to the public can diagnose, prevent, treat or cure a disease. They can, however, make vague claims that their supplements are essential for strong bones or that they can support a healthy heart, and so on. Hence, instead of restraining these supplement industry, the government, via the FDA, actually unleashed them. It is thus not surprising that since 1994 the growth of supplement products has reached exponential proportion.¹²

The logical deductions from these rules are that they fail to ensure safety and efficacy. Starting with safety, the rules on manufacturing standards apply only to the supplement-makers only. In other words, they do not apply their suppliers. In addition to this, the rules did not place any cap on the amount of nutrient that a pill may contain. Furthermore, the FDA’s powers over supplement products that are already on sale are limited. Thus, the agency cannot just ban a supplement product as they can do with other drugs. They must first of all prove that the product is unsafe before they can withdraw it from the shelves. Examined against this background, it was no surprise that it took seven years for the FDA to provide evidence that certain pills caused liver disease – an outcome that led to the outright banning of the pills. The saving grace for some food supplement –makers is that, given the FDA’s limited role, they can hire consultants to check their products’ quality. While many of the supplements-makers do this, others do not.

Studies have found problems with lots of food supplements. Earlier this year, New York’s Attorney-General Eric Schneiderman alleged that many food supplements did not contain what they claimed on their labels.¹³ While some industry groups and consumers argued that Schneiderman’s testing method were faulty, other studies have also found problems with food supplements: a test conducted on 42 multivitamins by ConsumerLab.com, a provider of independent tests results and information on health and nutrition products, revealed that 16 of them either have too little or too much of the nutrients claimed in the label.¹⁴

Other cases dealing with the safety or purported benefits of food supplements are more serious. In October 2014, an infant from Connecticut died from a contaminated probiotic.¹⁵ In 2013, the FDA received almost 30 complaints of averse incidents associated with  a vitamin B pill(Health Life Chemistry by Purity B-50), which was later found to contain steroids. The people  who took this pill reported many bad things happening to their body: the women reported facial hair growth and missed menstruation while men reported low testosterone and impotence. Lab results also found that using the product can impact cholesterol level as well as cause abnormal liver and thyroid function.¹⁶ During the same year, the U.S. Center for Disease Control (CDC) linked Oxy-Elite Pro, a dietary supplement, to acute hepatitis. Of the nearly 50 people that were hospitalized after using the product, at least 3 received a liver transplant while person died.¹⁷

The efficacy of these products is also questionable. What made dietary supplements more dangerous is that while firms must have some substantiation  for the claims they make on the labels and ads under the Dietary Supplements Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, they are not required to submit safety information about their products to FDA  before marketing them.¹⁸ This simple fact makes it difficult for the FDA  to monitor and regulate thousands of products being marketed by these firms. So it may not be surprising that the FDA had had to rely on adverse event reports, information in the scientific literature, product sampling and other sources of evidence of danger to combat public confusion about food supplements. This further means that the consumers are virtually unprotected against unsafe food supplements.

This, however, does not mean that all food supplements are bad. A few of them does have sound scientific evidence behind them. For instance, vitamin B12  is good for the elderly and folic acid is good for women planning to become pregnant. Low levels of vitamin D is linked to cognitive decline, even though evidence that the supplement can solve the problem is lacking.¹⁹ The supplement industry’s relentless central argument is that since many Americans eat unhealthily, supplements therefore fill a need. The problem with this argument is that it is difficult to discern many supplements’ benefits. For instance, in a drug trial the individuals in the control groups takes no medicine. In contrast, in in a study of a vitamin, the people in the control group still ingest various levels of that vitamin from food, making it a big challenge to judge the effects of the supplement. Not only that, the evidence that does exist about the benefits of food supplements is often mixed. Some botanicals, such as gingko (a supplement for improving cognitive function and for treating, preventing  or reducing the effects of Alzheimer’s disease) show no effect in large studies. Another popular herbal supplement known as John’s wort is ineffective because it can interfere with blood thinners.  In one surprising study, researchers conducted a test to determine if a precursor to vitamin A can cut the risk of cancer among smokers. Their results showed that the supplement seemed to increase it.²⁰ Another study with disturbing results was conducted in 2011. According to this study results men who take vitamin E have a higher risk of getting prostate cancer than those on a placebo. Two similar studies were also conducted around the same period which showed positive results:  one showed that multivitamins  may lower the risk of cancer in men while the other suggests they may lower heart-disease deaths in women. These outcomes were contradicted by researchers in three  studies in 2013.These researchers presented  data that showed that multivitamins supplements  showed no effect on cancer, heart disease, cognitive decline or death.²¹

Armed and proud

The industry experienced some signs of weakness in 2014, the year in which it grew more slowly than at any time since 2002.²² But the major players in the industry are not giving up irrespective of the negative attention and criticisms of the industry and its products. They have three reasons for adopting this mindset.

First, further regulation of the industry in America appear unlikely. Ideally there are bills to improve oversight. However, such bills never got anywhere at the Congress. The FDA doesn’t seem to have any plan about using its existing powers to police the industry. The Council for Responsible Nutrition(CRN), a trade association representing dietary supplements and functional food manufacturers,²³ has $6 million budget to boost the interests of its members. In contrast, the FDA has only $5.2 million to police the entire supplement industry. Besides,  its strongest boss to date, who had since returned to lobbying business, was a former lobbyist for the food supplement industry.²⁴  So, you do the math: more regulation is simply impossible given the agency’s resources. The FDA’s failure to issue warnings about the stimulant BMPEA on time illustrates the agency’s limits. The FDA knew that a range of popular diet pills and spots supplements contained BMPEA since 2013. But the agency did not issue warnings to the manufacturers of these products until last April. The FDA’s failure to take regulatory action on time, as appropriate, to protect consumers may have been due to conflicts of interests. It may also be that the agency has too many tasks with no cash to accomplish them at the time. Even the agency cannot confirm that products with BMPEA  are off the shelves  for nearly five months after sending its warning letters.²⁵

Second, the food supplement industry are expert in bouncing back. So, while a negative publicity can hurt sales, they usually bounce back up: the industry has indeed consistently shown notable prowess for getting back to their feet. For instance, a study on the risks of excessive amounts of vitamin D in a body – known as vitamin D toxicity – helped depress sales growth in the supplement industry from 16.7 percent in 2011 to 1.3 percent in 2012. But in 2013, sales growth in the industry rebounded to 9 percent.²⁶ Generally speaking, if one particular product does not make a comeback, the industry simply offer a new one – a strategy that has huge resonance with the consumers.

Third, Americans and the Western Europe in general love taking supplements. As a matter of fact, almost 50 percent of Americans take supplements regularly. The general belief that supplements are the holy grail of general health fuels their passion and craving for the product. Thus it is not surprising that Americans take them for their bones, their hearts and their minds, among other reasons. Added to the hype is the fact that supplement industry are also good marketers, who regularly craft targeted messages that will reach correct consumers. Not only that, conventional health care is expensive. So consumers sees supplements as an alternative, cost-effective solutions to the costly conventional health care since supplements lets them take charge of their health. Next is another important factor is what is generally known among scientists as the placebo effect: the customers’ brains responds positively to their belief that a given pill will help improve their body functions.²⁷

All these mean that the greatest threat to the industry may not be the regulators or the results of clinical trials. Their main threat is actually something that is very simple: consumers are earnestly searching for natural and organic foods. They are also willing to pay more for them. Thus in 2014, sales revenue from natural and organic foods grew by 12.7 percent compared to supplements’ rise of 5.1 percent.²⁸ But, as was expected, the supplement industry are already adapting. Last year, GNC launched a new line of whole-food-based supplements.²⁹ That same year Pharmvite acquired FoodState, a whole food supplement company which makes vitamins from fresh and local foods.³⁰

A final point: consumers can just cut out the supplement industry by eating decently and exercising regularly. But I do know that the supplement industry will not like this idea. And nobody will really blame them: they have good reason to hope that the consumers will not be that smart.

References

¹Retail Sales of Vitamins & Nutritional Supplements in the United States from 2000 to 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars). (2015). Statista. Retrieved October 19, 2015 from http://www.statista.com/statistics/235801/retail-sales-of-vitamins-and-nutritional-supplements-in-the-us/.

²Vitamins and Supplements - Miracle Healers. (2015, September 19). The Economist. Retrieved October 19, 2015 from http://www.economist.com/news/business/21665064-despite-scandals-and-scepticism-americas-supplement-industry-looks-healthy-miracle-healers.

³Ibid

⁴Long, J. (2015, June 12). Bayer Braces for Trial in Probiotic Supplement Dispute with FTC. Natural Products Insider. Retrieved October 19, 2015 from http://www.naturalproductsinsider.com/blogs/supplement-law/2015/06/bayer-braces-for-trial-in-probiotic-supplement-di.aspx.

⁵Federal Trade Commission. (2015). Homeopathic Medicine & Advertising. Press Release. Washington DC: Federal Trade Comission. Retrieved October 19, 2015 from https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/events-calendar/2015/09/homeopathic-medicine-advertising

⁶Vitamins and Supplements - Miracle Healers, op. cit., p. 57

⁷Retail Sales of Vitamins & Nutritional Supplements in the United States From 2000 to 2017 (in billion U.S. dollars). (N.D.). Statista. Retrieved October 26, 2015 from http://www.statista.com/statistics/235801/retail-sales-of-vitamins-and-nutritional-supplements-in-the-us/.

⁸The state of supplement sales in 2014. (2015). New Hope 360. Retrieved October 26, 2015 from http://newhope360.com/supplements/state-supplement-sales-2014.

⁹Price C.(2015): Vitamania – Our Obsessive Quest for Nutritional Perfection. New York, NY: Penguin Press.

¹⁰Linus Pauling - Biographical. (2015). Nobel Media.  Retrieved October 27, 2015 from http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1954/pauling-bio.html

¹¹Vitamins and Supplements - Miracle Healers, op. cit., p. 58

¹²Ibid

¹³Esch, M. (2015, April 2). 14 Attorneys General Seek Congressional Probe of Herbal Supplement Industry After New York Investigation. NBC New York. Retrieved November 9, 2015 from http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Herbal-Supplement-Warning-Congressional-Probe-New-York-Ingredients-Schneiderman-Consumer-Health-298522901.html.

¹⁴Vitamins and Supplements - Miracle Healers, op. cit., p. 58

¹⁵Kroll, D. (2014, December 17). Infant Death Triggers FDA Health Provider Warning On Probiotic Risks. Forbes. Retrieved November 9, 2015 from http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidkroll/2014/12/17/infant-death-triggers-fda-health-provider-warning-on-probiotic-risks/.

¹⁶Jaslow R.(2013): FDA: Anabolic Steroids Found in Vitamin B Supplement. CBS News. Retrieved November 9, 2015 from http://www.cbsnews.com/news/fda-anabolic-steroids-found-in-vitamin-b-supplement/

¹⁷FDA Investigation Summary: Acute Hepatitis Illnesses Linked to Certain OxyElite Pro Products. (2013). U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Retrieved November 9, 2015 from http://www.fda.gov/food/recallsoutbreaksemergencies/outbreaks/ucm370849.htm.

¹⁸U.S. Congress (1994). Dietary Supplement Health And Education Act of 1994. Retrieved November 9, 2015 from http://health.gov/dietsupp/ch1.htm.

¹⁹Vitamins and Supplements - Miracle Healers, op. cit., p. 58

²⁰Tanvetyanon T., Beplar G.(2008). Beta-Carotines in Multivitamines and the Possible Risk of Lung Cancer Among Smokers versus Former Smokers. Cancer, 113(1), 150-157.

²¹Vitamins and Supplements - Miracle Healers, op. cit., p. 58

²²Ibid

²³About CRN. (n.d.). Council for Responsible Nutrition. Retrieved November 18, 2015 from http://www.crnusa.org/who_about.html.

²⁴Vitamins and Supplements - Miracle Healers, op. cit., p. 60

²⁵Ibid

²⁶Ibid

²⁷Ibid

²⁸Ibid

²⁹Get Fit, Feel Great With GNC PUREDGE™ Line of Whole-Food-Based Supplements . (2014). PR Newswire. Retrieved November 23, 2015 from http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/get-fit-feel-great-with-gnc-puredge-line-of-whole-food-based-supplements-300000553.html.

³⁰Vitamins and Supplements - Miracle Healers, op. cit., p. 60