WASHINGTON, D.C., May15, 2006 — Annette Dickinson, Ph.D., consultant and past president, Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), today addressed a scientific panel convened by the government, and an audience of several hundred  attendees, at the "State of the Science Conference on Multivitamin/Mineral Supplements and Chronic Disease Prevention," in Bethesda, Md.

The three-day event is being sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Dietary Supplements (ODS) and the NIH Office of Medical Applications of Research (OMAR).

During her five-minute presentation, Dr. Dickinson emphasized the value of the multivitamin for filling nutrition gaps and promoting overall health, urging the panel to pay careful attention to the language used in its conclusions in order to avoid inadvertently undermining public confidence in "one of the easiest and most affordable ways for people to improve their nutrient intake and their health—namely, the consistent long-term use of a multivitamin."

Dr. Dickinson thanked NIH for allowing her to speak on the industry’s behalf and noted the need for NIH to take a leading role in advancing the science. But she advised "…consideration needs to be given to whether the drug model is the appropriate way to assess the preventative benefit of nutrients."

Supporting Dr. Dickinson’s on-site presentation, CRN issued a position paper, "Multivitamins and Other Dietary Supplements for Better Health," that she co-authored with Andrew Shao, Ph.D., vice president, scientific and regulatory affairs for CRN. The 34-page paper emphasizes that nutrition surveys consistently reveal that substantial numbers of Americans fail to obtain recommended amounts of various nutrients from diet alone with the multivitamin providing a proven bridge between what we should eat and what we actually eat. The paper also references a number of studies that reported health benefits attributed to antioxidants, folic acid, or various combinations of B vitamins, calcium and vitamin D, all vitamins and minerals that comprise a multivitamin.