The Ugly History of Vitamin D3 and Fauci’s pro-Vaccine Bias. We had an inexpensive life-saving solution both before and during the pandemic.
The inconvenient truth is that even at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, a very simple, inexpensive and effective treatment was available that could have saved the majority of lives lost (1-3). All that the WHO and public health bureaucracy had to do was to recommend and support people taking sufficient Vitamin D3. This failure to act traces back to the unscientific bias and pro-vaccine obsession of Dr. Anthony Fauci. And once again the legacy media, while being paid by the US government and the pharmaceutical industry to promote vaccination, acted by censoring, defaming and suppressing the ability of physicians to inform people of scientific truth. The disease you suffered, the loss of life among your family and friends, could have been greatly reduced by simply getting enough Vitamin D3. This is another example of what happens when unelected bureaucrats are allowed to control free speech. Crimes against humanity.
The effectiveness of Vitamin D3 as an immune system-boosting prophylactic treatment for influenza and other respiratory RNA viruses was first discovered in 2006 (4, 5). Despite that fact that this treatment is amazingly effective for preventing death (by strengthening your immune system), it has never been investigated by the NIH, promoted by the CDC or by the US government for the treatment of influenza. One major issue has been that uncontrolled variables of dosing, timing of dosing and disease status have resulted in inconsistent clinical trial results (much as we have seen with the Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine COVID trials). However, when Vitamin D3 is given prophylactically at sufficient doses, there is clear and compelling evidence that Vitamin D blood levels of around 50 ng/ml will substantially reduce symptomatic infection, severe disease and mortality.
Longstanding worldwide public health policy is that Vitamin D should be taken at sufficient levels (typically supplemented in milk products) to prevent the bone disease called rickets. But this is just a minimal level to prevent a very obvious debilitating disease. The recommended Vitamin D levels in our milk are not sufficient for the more subtle immune system-boosting effects of this critical vitamin/hormone. Our bodies’ way of normally producing Vitamin D requires a lot of sunlight, but life in the modern world and northern latitudes make this difficult- particular in winter months, which is often when the respiratory viruses cause the most disease and death. In a sense, disease and death from Influenza and other respiratory RNA viruses are a lifestyle disease. Just the way things are. Largely avoidable unnecessary death.
As I write the above, I am reminded that I recently spoke with a scientist and physician who was on a team at the Department of Defense (DoD) in 2006 which had discovered a surprising finding while analyzing data from warfighters. He and his team had been looking for things that could help explain why some soldiers got bad disease from circulating influenza viruses, while others did not. I hear a lot of stories, but this one was a first for me.
In any given year, soldiers pretty much all get exposed to the same influenza virus variants, so why the differences in medical outcomes? Important to keep in mind that lots of data suggest that the 1918 “Spanish Flu” that swept the world at the close of WW-I (World War-I) and caused so many deaths in relatively young people may well have come from young US midwestern recruits exposed to pig influenza viruses. This version of the 1918 influenza origin story goes along the lines that these young farmer recruits brought a human-adapted pig virus from US to the European battle theater, where it incubated in the infectious disease petri dish of the horrible conditions of trench warfare, and then was spread worldwide to civilians by returning soldiers. The “Spanish Flu” label which the US mainstream media of the time applied to the disease was yet another case of propaganda designed to deflect responsibility for a lethal infectious disease outbreak (from the US Government). In any case, you can understand why the DoD and the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in particular has a long history of influenza virus research – starting long before the CDC, NIH or NIAID ever existed.
This DoD research scientist and his team had conducted a retrospective study which tied higher baseline vitamin D levels to lowered respiratory virus infection and disease (influenza), using a military database to correlate vitamin D levels to flu levels and death. The DoD believed that if he presented his research to Dr. Fauci, then Director of NIAID (National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases), that the US government might change direction by investing in this line of research and developing corresponding treatment guidelines. The DoD saw the potential of reducing influenza disease and death with this safe prophylactic, and directed him to contact Dr. Fauci to discuss this finding.
This scientist told me that he scheduled the meeting as assigned, and presented his rock-solid data to Dr. Fauci. He was then informed by Dr. Fauci that US policy is to control influenza in the USA with vaccines, not therapeutics. End of story. No funding or support available for future work. Therefore, NIAID had no interest in pursuing Vitamin D3 as a prophylactic for respiratory diseases, such as influenza, and the DoD dropped the follow up. That means that over fifteen years ago, Dr. Fauci had already set the policies which informed the US government’s present response to COVID. Because that policy extends well beyond flu, it is the response that the US Government falls back on for all infectious disease outbreaks, including those that emerge due to a pandemic or viral biothreat. The official policy, set by Dr. Fauci, is that the US government wants vaccines for respiratory viruses above all else, and no other prophylactic solutions are to be promoted.
So, with that background, why would anyone expect anything else other than an exclusive USG obsession with a vaccine solution for an infectious respiratory disease such as COVID-19, even if there are excellent, cheap alternatives already available?
The data for the use of Vitamin D3 is extremely strong; there are now even randomized clinical trials supporting its use for the treatment of COVID (6), as well as many retrospective clinical trials showing its efficacy. The title of a major meta-analysis study published in October, 2021 is “COVID-19 Mortality Risk Correlates Inversely with Vitamin D3 Status, and a Mortality Rate Close to Zero Could Theoretically Be Achieved at 50 ng/mL 25(OH)D3: Results of a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis,” and that title pretty much says it all (7).
Yet the NIH treatment guidelines found on their website in May 2022, state that: “Recommendation: There is insufficient evidence to recommend either for or against the use of Vitamin D for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19.”
The CDC’s website says nothing about the link between Vitamin D3 levels and decreased severe disease and death in respiratory virus diseases, including COVID. The NIH guidelines cite a single study in which Vitamin D was given to COVID patients in the intensive care unit (late stage COVID) in Brazil as the sole criteria for their evaluation of Vitamin D. They even mention that this paper is flawed, writing that: “It should be noted that this study had a small sample size and enrolled participants with a variety of comorbidities and concomitant medications. The time between symptom onset and randomization was relatively long.”
Yet this admittedly flawed work is the cited study from which the NIH determined that there is no link between Vitamin D levels and reduced incidence and disease due to SARS-CoV-2, while ignoring all other data including superior studies. Clear documentation of the scientific bias which has resulted in so many poor public health management decisions throughout the current outbreak.
There is nothing in the CDC guidelines about the meta-analysis studies, retrospective studies and even randomized clinical trials concerning preventative use of Vitamin D3– just an oblique reference to clinicaltrials.gov if one wanted more information. This is shocking. Can this be explained by anything other than regulatory capture by the US government institutes within the department of Health and Human Services, including CDC, NIH, and FDA?
With an emerging infectious disease, drugs and therapeutics are often the first line of defense. Physicians use deductive reasoning when confronted with a new infectious disease or even any unknown disease. This is how they are taught to respond to a newly identified disease of any kind, because it is a very effective way to treat when faced with an unknown or even unclear diagnosis when there is no proven treatment plan (8). Begin by treating the symptoms until you can figure out the underlying pathophysiology.
With COVID, it became clear early on that the front-line physicians were able to develop effective therapies using this strategy. There were many drugs, and many treatments (including prophylactic Vitamin D3) that worked. These physicians made deductions and treated the symptoms. The numbers of lives saved using this method are astounding, but the government literally said that physicians should not use these treatments. Instead, the government instructed that patients were to go home and wait until their oxygen levels were so low, that their lips were turning blue. That was criminal on the part of the HHS and US government. Truly a crime against humanity.
There are doctors who ignored these guidelines and behaved like doctors should act- when they are committed to the Hippocratic oath. They saved lives. They formed quiet communities with other doctors to find viable treatments. Dr. George Fareed and Dr. Brian Tyson are two such doctors that have saved thousands and thousands of lives, as documented in their book titled: “Overcoming the COVID-19 Darkness: How Two Doctors Successfully Treated 7000 Patients” (9). Compare the case studies and protocols in this book and the many complementary case histories of physicians working on the front lines (for example in the USA Drs. Peter McCullough, Pierre Kory, Paul Marik, Vladimir (Zev) Zelenko, and Richard Urso, and Didier Raoult and his colleagues in France as just a few examples) to what happened when the US government became involved in dictating medical treatments for COVID.
Unfortunately, the US government did not support any of this frontline physician work’, and in fact worked hard to undermine early multi-drug treatment using licensed drugs. Precisely as Dr. Fauci did 15 years ago when his learned of the role of vitamin D3 for the reduction of disease and death in respiratory diseases.
To further illustrate the enormous tragedy of this historic bias, just think of all the elderly who could have had a few more good years, whose grandchildren could have benefited from their wisdom, but instead died of the flu just because no one ever told them to keep their Vitamin D3 levels up. Because Dr. Fauci believes that vaccines should always be the first line of defense.
This also relates back to the faulty logic of vaccine-induced herd immunity. A logical fallacy that through the use of vaccines we could control influenza to a significant extent in the U.S. population. This is flawed because 1) influenza is constantly mutating to escape existing vaccines, 2) there is a large seasonal unvaccinated world population, and travelers are constantly bringing new strains to the USA, 3) the vaccines are at best 40% (and often much less) effective at preventing influenza disease (sounds familiar?), and 4) there are enormous animal reservoirs which harbor and constantly develop new influenza virus strains. But due to the world’s success in eradicating smallpox, “official” public health (and Mr. Bill Gates) can not seem to understand that not all viruses are a DNA virus (like smallpox) that mutates extremely slowly and is only found in humans. Comparing smallpox to a rapidly mutating respiratory virus with a large animal reservoir is both illogical and naïve.
But let’s take a step back in time, a decade back. Let’s imagine that Dr. Fauci had authorized the DoD or some other research entity to do a well-designed randomized clinical trial concerning the benefits of adequate D3 levels in preventing respiratory virus disease. If such a trial had been funded, results would have shown that higher vitamin D3 supplementation to achieve blood levels greater than 50 ng/ml helped prevent disease and death caused by influenza virus. Lets’ imagine that five years later (at the latest), a CDC guideline for D3 levels was put in place (particularly for the elderly). For sake of discussion, let’s even throw out a number. A conservative number, based on what we know now. That 50% of the people who have died from influenza could have been saved if they had sufficiently high vitamin D3 blood levels. Per a CDC website, on average 35.7 thousand people die per year of influenza. In other words, about 357,000 people have died of influenza over the last decade. Which means if 50% were saved by providing Vitamin D3 supplements, then 161,000 people could have been saved over the last decade in the USA by simply having the CDC advocate nationally for prophylactic administration of Vitamin D3. Think about that. A simple, pennies per day treatment that never happened. Why? Because Dr. Fauci believes that the USA uses vaccines to treat flu, and that vaccine-induced herd immunity is key – a fallacy that he has never revisited in his own mind.
Now let’s fast forward to COVID-19. How many people could have been saved from just having their levels of vitamin D3 brought up to 50 ng/ml (or higher!)? We knew about vitamin D3. It really didn’t take a randomized clinical trial to understand the link between D3 and RNA respiratory virus morbidity and mortality. The U.S.A alone could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Let alone all of the possible lives that could have been saved in the rest of the world. That these lives were unnecessarily lost is not acceptable in any way, shape or form. A crime against humanity.
Many people (and physicians) rely on the CDC and NIH to guide them in healthcare and wellness decisions. It is way past time that these organizations step up to the plate and do their job, and stop relying on the unscientific biases of highly influential bureaucrats. That job being to protect the health of the public. Not advancing the interests of the pharmaceutical industry and its shareholders.
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1. Brenner H, Holleczek B, Schottker B. Vitamin D Insufficiency and Deficiency and Mortality from Respiratory Diseases in a Cohort of Older Adults: Potential for Limiting the Death Toll during and beyond the COVID-19 Pandemic? Nutrients. 2020;12(8).
2. Ilie PC, Stefanescu S, Smith L. The role of vitamin D in the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 infection and mortality. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2020;32(7):1195-8.
3. Maruotti A, Belloc F, Nicita A. Comments on: The role of vitamin D in the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 infection and mortality. Aging Clin Exp Res. 2020;32(8):1621-3.
4. Cannell JJ, Vieth R, Umhau JC, Holick MF, Grant WB, Madronich S, et al. Epidemic influenza and vitamin D. Epidemiol Infect. 2006;134(6):1129-40.
5. Grant WB, Garland CF. The role of vitamin D3 in preventing infections. Age Ageing. 2008;37(1):121-2.
6. Villasis-Keever MA, Lopez-Alarcon MG, Miranda-Novales G, Zurita-Cruz JN, Barrada-Vazquez AS, Gonzalez-Ibarra J, et al. Efficacy and Safety of Vitamin D Supplementation to Prevent COVID-19 in Frontline Healthcare Workers. A Randomized Clinical Trial. Arch Med Res. 2022.
7. Borsche L, Glauner B, von Mendel J. COVID-19 Mortality Risk Correlates Inversely with Vitamin D3 Status, and a Mortality Rate Close to Zero Could Theoretically Be Achieved at 50 ng/mL 25(OH)D3: Results of a Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Nutrients. 2021;13(10).
8. Shin HS. Reasoning processes in clinical reasoning: from the perspective of cognitive psychology. Korean J Med Educ. 2019;31(4):299-308.
9. Tyson B, Fareed, G.Crawford, M. Overcoming the COVID-19 Darkness: How Two Doctors Successfully Treated 7000 Patients. Amazon2022 Jan 7, 2022.
(This article was first published in https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/)