Talk:Cypress Systems

Untitled

Cypress Systems, Inc. is historical in that its research, along with the National Cancer Institute, was involved with the discovery of selenium supplementation as being effective for the prevention of a variety of cancers.

Company Claims vs. Reality

I think the first paragraph should be less generous toward CSI because it indicates that the company is or was somehow involved in clinical research that discovered a value for selenium in disease prevention. As you can see below, I've written a lengthy objection to this after a bit of reading. I'm hoping this will inform future contributions, but also to pusuade others that a fair NPOV should agree less with the company's brand story. The Cypress Systems, Inc. (CSI hereon) website claims that CSI has an 18-year partnership with NCI (http://www.cypressingredients.com/our-science-is-golden/), but it's not clear that any association between the two exist. CEO Mark Whitacre authored three papers in the 80's on selenium's role in chick development while associated with Cornell University (and not CSI; http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/?term=Whitacre+ME%5BAuthor%5D). Whitacre (and CSI) frequently cite work by scientist Lawrence Clark in support of CSI's proprietary selenium supplements. Clark's 1996 JAMA paper reflects an association with Arizona Cancer Center, also not CSI. Whitacre and Clark's associations notwithstanding, I object that selenium was discovered to prevent cancer (above here on talk), since such a statement is not verifiable. Whitacre's work was on early development in a chicken model, and is not directly related to the pertinent company claims. Clark's JAMA report concluded that selenium supplementation was not protective against primary endpoint carcinomas and that, while post-hoc analysis of secondary endpoints suggest some value, the authors themselves admit that "these effects of selenium [on secondary endpoints] require confirmation in an independent trial of appropriate design." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/8971064/). I think it's valuable to reiterate that selenium was also not found to protect against cancer in later clinical trials, because it speaks to what might be an objective and NPOV for this article. Claims that selenium "may reduce the risk of certain cancers" and "may have anticarcinogenic effects in the body" (http://www.cypressingredients.com/productformulators/) seem not to have any basis. As the WP article fairly states, later trials (the 2008 SELECT trial involving sime 35,000 patients for instance) also found no benefit from selenium supplementation. (http://www.cancer.gov/types/prostate/research/select-trial-results-qa). Even later work by Clark demonstrated, again, no benefit for prevention of prostate cancer (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/pros.22573/abstract). In other words, Lawrence Clark repeatedly found that selenium was not effective in cancer prevention, but Mark Whitacre continually cites Clark's work in support of selenium as an effective cancer prophylactic. I propose that the first paragraph read something like "Cypress Systems, Inc. is a Madera, CA company that manufactures yeast extracts enriched in chromium, zinc and selenium." In my mind, the company's involvement in research activities and product efficacy should be presented strictly as a claim by the company, and not as fact, given that neither Clark nor Whitacre were associated with CSI at the time of publication, that no trial (including Clark's 1996 JAMA report that Whitacre continues to cite, and at least one later trial in which Clark was involved) using selenium supplementation as a cancer prophylactic have shown any convincing benefit, and that there appears to be no evidence (that I am aware) that CSI as a company has taken part in clinical or otherwise peer-reviewed scientific research. MRotten (talk) 20:47, 26 June 2015 (UTC)