The first thing you have to do to understand this news is put the AHA in perspective. This is an organization that has for decades discredited and fought against the use of vitamins. The AHA has even strongly recommended for many years that people avoid virtually all dietary fats, including healthy fats that are unquestionably shown to enhance cardiovascular health. Why would the AHA offer advice that so obviously makes people ill? One reason might be that the AHA receives tremendous funding from pharmaceutical companies, and recommending nutritional supplements that actually enhance the health of patients would go against the financial interests of the pharmaceutical companies that market and sell drugs used to treat the symptoms of cardiovascular disease.
Thus, I believe the AHA is a highly politicized organization that is heavily influenced by the business interests of its primary financial supporters -- Big Pharma. Accordingly, any health advice from the AHA is tainted. In fact, it's worse that that: it's highly destructive advice that will probably land you in the hospital suffering from one or more chronic diseases.
Consider for a moment that physicians who follow the AHA's recommendations on heart disease have for years actually promoted extremely high-carbohydrate diets to their patients. I've met heart patients who were told to consume less than 10 grams a day of fat, and yet they could eat any amount of sugar that they wanted. Get this -- I've seen heart patients avoiding all fat, including the healthy fats like avocados, nuts, seeds, flax oil and so on, while they were consuming massive quantities of donuts, candy bars, sugars, soft drinks and other sweets. When I asked them why they were following such a ridiculous diet, they would turn to me and say, "Doctor's orders!" That's what you get from following the advice of the American Heart Association.
The bottom line to all of this is when the AHA says people should stop taking vitamins, nutritionists like myself who really know about nutrition and the links between foods and disease can only laugh in response. It is ridiculous advice from an organization that has a long history of offering ridiculous advice, and whose advice is probably responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Americans who have suffered from heart disease and could have lived much longer if they had ignored the AHA.