Over 100 Scientists and Doctors Call for Increased Vitamin D to Combat Covid-19

by kpfleger • 6 years ago

119 112 6 years ago

kpfleger6• 6 years ago

185 experts. Over 100 medical doctors. Roughly 100 professors, including many of the most respected vitamin D experts in the world---check out the list of names and qualifications yourself.

Please read the link before posting about correlation or other opinions on the topic. The point is to note the aggregate credibility of the backers here. This is analogous to the open letter done for face masks last spring.

fareesh2• 6 years ago

Isn't there a similarly sized letter asking for the regulator to look into their findings for Ivermectin?

kpfleger6• 6 years ago

The FLCCC has been pushing Ivermectin, but I am not aware of an open letter analogous to this one or the similar one for masks that is signed by 100+ doctors & scientists.

I have not personally read the Ivermectin literature, but I think the FLCCC's methodology is good. (Paul Marik of FLCCC is a signatory on this vitamin D letter, BTW.) But it's notable that no one has Ivermectin deficiency, whereas more than half of people have insufficient vitamin D, especially in winter, so increased D intake is justified even in the absence of this COVID19 pandemic.

irq1114• 6 years ago

The open letter for face masks is a great example for why this kind of thing is dubious.

All prior high-quality evidence disputed the claim:

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/podcasts-webinars/specia...

The subsequent evidence of real-world effectiveness isn’t great: cases are skyrocketing around the northern hemisphere, and mask mandates aren’t making a difference. The only randomized controlled trial ever conducted for masks and covid was not able to detect any protective effect, yet was rejected from multiple journals because of “consensus”:

https://www.medpagetoday.com/blogs/vinay-prasad/89778

Science by signature count isn’t science; it’s a popularity contest. It’s perfectly fine to advocate for a belief, but nobody should pretend that they have the “scientific” argument simply because their signature list is longer.

jiofih4• 6 years ago

cases are skyrocketing

And comments like yours are one of the reasons.

The study shows that masks do little to protect the wearer - which is kind of obvious as it’s not going to filter incoming air very efficiently, that has never been the purpose of surgical masks. They don’t protect against airborne pathogens and every medical professional knows it.

You need a crítica mass for masks to start reducing transmission rates. Mask use is nowhere near what it should have been, so you cannot take any conclusions out of that.

AshWolfy• 6 years ago

Science is built on consensus

Also the fact that mask mandates are poorly enforced, or that masks arent a replacement for other forms of prevention, or that some materials dont offer the same level of prevention dont change the fact that masks work

irjustin• 6 years ago

I don't understand your hard-lined conclusion when the paper that the blog post references can't reach a conclusion either.

The blog post also reaches a semi-hard lined conclusion yet still leaves room for additional work as it should.

Problems with the study:

- Not everyone the participants are interacting with also have a mask (Blog post references this with "protects you, not me")

- The result is "Although the difference observed was not statistically significant, the 95% CIs are compatible with a 46% reduction to a 23% increase in infection."

- "The recommendation to wear surgical masks to supplement other public health measures did not reduce the SARS-CoV-2 infection rate among wearers by more than 50% in a community with modest infection rates, some degree of social distancing, and uncommon general mask use."

My point is "Masks are in effective" can't be concluded from this. It failed to show a reduction of 50%, sure, but what about 25% at a higher CI? Was it literally 0% at 5 sigma? Clearly more work needs to be done to show 0% at any meaningful CI.

If you don't believe in masks fine, don't go see other people - it's way more effective anyway.

gHosts• 6 years ago

https://medium.com/incerto/the-masks-masquerade-7de897b517b7

pmiller24• 6 years ago

There's a difference between "mask mandates aren't making a difference" and "masks aren't effective." Take a look at Japan, where the government has done fuck all to deal with the virus, but people wear their masks.

mc32• 6 years ago

Wait...

A few months ago people laughed at the suggestion. It was "dangerous" to "deceive" people about Vit D and Covid.

Wasn't Twitter suppressing this too? How do they punish themselves for misinformation?

Now it comes out. I wonder how many other things will come to light.

kpfleger6• 6 years ago

This has been a big problem. Some people labeled science on vitamin D & covid19 as misinformation, lumping vitamin D in with things that have little to no evidence even when the vitamin D evidence was mounting rapidly. Part of the point of this open letter is to show that many serious people agree that vitamin D should be used in the pandemic. The inappropriate suppression of this message is now the mis-information. This should be clear from reading the letter and its very few references carefully.

See also the op-ed just posted to MedPage Today, and posted separately here on HackerNews: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25680373

WalterGR• 6 years ago

A few months ago people laughed at the suggestion. It was "dangerous" to "deceive" people about Vit D and Covid.

Who? Doctors or people on the internet?

Wasn't Twitter suppressing this too?

I don't know. Were they? By "too" do you mean the unidentified people above?

How do they punish themselves for misinformation?

How do they punish themselves for insinuations of possibly suppressing something?

Now it comes out. I wonder how many other things will come to light.

Such as what?

tmcw• 6 years ago

Hacker news is fixated on the Vitamin D hypothesis. 142 posts in the last year, many hitting the front page.

King-Aaron• 6 years ago

I wonder if it correlates to Joe Rogan's fixation on Vitamin D

deathlight• 6 years ago

Steve Gibson has also been on the vit D train for some time predating covid.

mark-r• 6 years ago

The HN crowd is fascinated by simple but effective "hacks". This appears to be one.

tasogare• 6 years ago

Do we have an idea of low the death rate of covid is when the vitamin D deficiency is fixed?

bpodgursky• 6 years ago

The rest of the world is fascinated by simple but effective "hacks" like wearing a mask. There are a lot of simple hacks that end up being real.

waterhouse2• 6 years ago

Well, is it wrong?

And programmers seem more likely to spend their time indoors, and therefore more likely to be vitamin-D-deficient without supplementation.

incrudible5• 6 years ago

I was tested severely deficient. Didn't have any obvious symptoms either.

neom• 6 years ago

It could also be that many of us have seen studies over the past few years about the general issues with Vitamin D deficiencies, so, in addition to the recent studies; it doesn't seem like such a leap that something as simple as increasing Vitamin D could benefit covid protection/recovery.

phkahler• 6 years ago

Right. We know most people have lower levels in winter. There is reason to believe it helps. There is little reason to think it may harm - particularly in light of the seasonal deficiency. Why would anyone not think it's worth trying? I've been wondering why the CDC hasn't recommended it yet.

Exmoor2• 6 years ago

As someone who first learned that healthy Vitamin D levels were known to decrease respiratory illness severity (regardless if they help with COVID) I have mixed feelings about the repeated front-page posts. On one hand, I think it's useful information to know. On the other hand, it starts feeling a little weird. Like that person you knew in high school who claimed that some marijuana product cured basically any illness. It feels like it makes it lose credibility.

brutal_chaos_• 6 years ago

Be careful not to conflated this letter with studies. If 142 letters were posted, I'd be right there with you. AFAIK(I haven't checked them all) the other links are mostly studies.

0-_-02• 6 years ago

Shouldn't it be?

jupiter900003• 6 years ago

Worth a read, more in depth analysis of some of these studies: https://liorpachter.wordpress.com/2020/11/17/mathematical-an...

incrudible5• 6 years ago

I have doubts about some of these "mask wearing" studies too. I'm still wearing a mask. I'm still taking Vitamin D. These are low-risk interventions. I'm not going to wait for some p value to get smaller to take action.

jupiter900003• 6 years ago

Nothing is stopping anyone from doing what they think makes sense to them -- scientific studies should still be just that though, following sound principles to be able to draw realistic conclusions. If we use flawed studies to convince others that something is true, that doesn't seem fine to me.

kurthr2• 6 years ago

I'm not sure what aspect of the "mask wearing" you doubt, but I don't have much doubt in the germ theory of disease, and I've been suggesting wearing a mask since Feb, because it works against just about every communicable respiratory disease from bacteria to virus (or pollen or asbestos). I'd recommend eye protection for COVID as well, because the eyes (along with the lungs) appear to be a higher risk aerosol entry point than the stomach through the mouth.

Whether vitamin D has any effect is still very much unknown.

Tagbert• 6 years ago

Since most mask studies are done in high/extended exposure environments like hospitals, they are not the best model for most people’s use.

This summer, the state of Kansas did an (inadvertent) infield experiment where some counties implemented mask mandates and other counties did not. After a few week, the non-mask mandate counties infection rates increased rapidly. The mask mandate counties’ infection rate increased on slightly.

Exmoor2• 6 years ago

I've been following all the COVID related studies (via /r/COVID19, which is one of very few Reddit subs I've found worthwhile) and there is an incredible abundance of garbage studies about COVID19 in general. Tiny sample sizes and ridiculous methodologies run wild. It's unfortunate because some of them get reported on by lazy media and muddy the waters on several things that might reduce the diseases severity.

I hope some bored science writer someday makes a book compiling and critiquing some of the ridiculous "studies" that got written during the pandemic.

I appreciated the linked article's subtle shade-throwing:

As for Vitamin D administration to hospitalized COVID-19 patients reducing ICU admission, the best one can say about the Córdoba study is that nothing can be learned from it.

pjscott• 6 years ago

And here is a point-by-point response from the authors of the paper it criticizes, which I found convincing:

http://compbio.mit.edu/calcifediol/Response_to_Pachter_criti...

matthewmorgan2• 6 years ago

Get everyone back to their right latitude won't be any need for all this fuss

gnusty_gnurc4• 6 years ago

I mean - there's more truth to this than people want to admit.

It's a harsh way to phrase that it's practically abusive to make people live at certain latitudes where they can't absorb the amount of sun that creates vitamin-d adequate for their body.

Of course the way to combat this is just identifying deficiency and prescribing the right amount.

matthewmorgan2• 6 years ago

Sunlight activates hundreds of genes, do you think vitamin d is the only variable in this equation?

raziel2701• 6 years ago

Time to chug some milk.

nradov• 6 years ago

This site has a fairly complete index of all the studies about vitamin D and COVID-19. The total weight of evidence is now quite strong.

https://vitamin-d-covid.shotwell.ca/

gnusty_gnurc4• 6 years ago

I mean we know vitamin-D is related to improved immunity and seemingly a whole host of other benefits.

We also know obesity and other chronic illness associated with diet is a horrific risk factor for covid.

Why in the hell haven't these options been blared across every channel and drilled into our minds?

If you're concerned about dying, enough to jail yourself in your house for a year, how about put down the freaking donut and get some sunshine.

bandana• 6 years ago

Anybody from the "stay the f* at home" crowd want to chime in ? How do I make vitamin D when it is illegal/frowned at to be outside ?

bagacrap• 6 years ago

order supplements on Amazon? The uv index is very low this time of year anyway, so sun exposure doesn't do much.

throwaway2011032• 6 years ago

Yeah I wouln't trust Amazon for supplements. Your local pharmacy or grocery store can probably deliver it or have it available for contact-less pickup.

stunt• 6 years ago

I have no way to judge. But I know the normal recovery rate for COVID19 is high. I also know a lot of patients are advised to take Vitamin-D supplement now. So it's hard to say if Vitamin-D is really helping or not without proper test on large group of patients with same validation methods that they use for vacines.

denton-scratch• 6 years ago

Over a million scientists and doctors decline to make that call.

sizzle2• 6 years ago

How credible is vitaminforall.org? Never heard of it...

kpfleger6• 6 years ago

The site itself was set up (by me) just to host this open letter, just as the site masks4all.co was set up to host the similar open letter that happened for masks in the spring. The credibility isn't of the site itself but of the signatories of the site, which are listed plainly (with any conflicts of interest). Look through the list yourself to judge their credibility.

sizzle2• 6 years ago

Thanks for the explanation, I'll look into the sources which you cited so the credibility was very apparent, just not the domain which you've cleared up for me.

Over 100 Scientists and Doctors Call for Increased Vitamin D to Combat Covid-19

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