As I predicted, our new co-plaintiff Robert F. Kennedy Jr. meets even the Supreme Court's stringent standing requirements, which means the injunction against the government is back in play.
As I'm sure you know, the Dark Horse YouTube (Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying) was demonetized for discussing ivermectin, creating a financial harm. Whatever the drug's effectiveness for COVID, should government agencies have the power to influence social media to shut down debate and impose monetary penalty? Does the government have special knowledge to conclude when science is settled?
The theory of continental drift was once considered baseless and wrongheaded until marine studies showed the magnetic orientation rocks laid down in spreading zones correlated neatly with reversals of the Earth's polarity. If bureaucrats were in charge, they would stifle every such surprising paradigm shift in science because all such shifts violate the accepted, popular model. Would questioning the famous USDA "food pyramid" (influenced by industry) have been demonetized? What about settled knowledge of putting a raw steak on a black eye?
Bureaucrats appointed by politicians might be the worst and most dangerous possible arbiters of truth one can imagine. Science is not a popularity contest and, despite the phrase "scientific consensus," even scientists end up with egg on their faces.
Exactly. Science has nothing to do with consensus -- it's about evidence, and advances by challenging what we think we know. Science and censorship are totally incompatible.
Bret Weinstein is a friend and I'm familiar with his experiences of censorship/demonitization on YouTube -- one of many unjust casualties of this censorship regime.
Suppression of certain ideas has cascading effects and harms, like an avalanche. The government's track record of picking winners and losers ($535 million in loan guarantees to Solyndra) hardly qualifies it to determine what we hear and read.
This is extremely encouraging. Thanks for all your efforts. More on health below, in this multi-part comment.
You and your co-plaintiffs - now including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - are at the vanguard of most of humanity's striving, since before recorded history, to free ourselves from thought and speech strangling programs of legions clueless do-gooders, bullies and tyrants.
This has long been a running battle, or series of skirmishes, based on threats and violence vs. persuasion and sometimes, though only occasionally effective, violent resistance, such as led to the establishment of the United States of America. Ideally the battle could be fought and won without violence, but this requires more than thoroughly persuasive arguments, because the legions of censorious, sometimes murderous, people who curtail our ability to communicate freely have no interest in such arguments.
To successfully argue the case, in ways which bring about lasting relief from censorship, there needs to be a consistent and powerful government structure which - despite the intentions of many who lead and populate governments and their agencies - can be turned into legally (and so with the implicit threat of state-ordered violence) enforceable arrangements which keep the censors at bay.
A powerful government structure on its own is no use. It is probably worse than useless since it is quickly populated and driven by censorious thugs and corruptniks. Examples abound, not least the surge of censorship in the UK and Europe, as documented by Eugyppius https://www.eugyppius.com and others and here in Australia, such as by Rebekah Barnett: https://news.rebekahbarnett.com.au.
In order to peacefully and successful use the structures of civilized government to enact lasting protections for freedom of speech, there needs to be court (and so bureaucracy, police and armed forces) enforceable principles, acts of parliament or whatever as foundations which the tyrants and those-who-know-best-and-curtail-wrong-thought-for-our-own-good must abide by.
Two such foundations for building further, lasting, foundations upon, are the Magna Carta and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. There's nothing like the First Amendment in any other country I know of - certainly not here in Australia, or in the UK or European countries.
To prevail against those who would harm and kill us for violating their preferred modes of thought and expression, people need to be organised and able to communicate efficiently and reasonably freely. Face-to-face speech and hand-written communication have their limits. The printing press, electronic broadcast media and now Internet communications are far more powerful.
If all goes well, your combined court cases will find sufficient judicial support all the way to a Supreme Court judgement which provides a lasting precedent which protects freedom of speech in the USA.
Other countries citizens, mass media, governments and legislatures will surely be inspired, emboldened and empowered to enact similar provisions, ideally as constitutional amendments, over two centuries after the United States led the way.
Then, after a brief rest, y'all (or at least you and Robert F. Kennedy) will surely pursue further urgent matters of fundamental importance, including reforming the public health, food, agriculture and other regulatory authorities, and tackling the causes of chronic disease and neurological harm.
(2 of 3) Here is a crucial part of this work, which - despite the efforts of researchers and clinicians since at least 2008 https://www.grassrootshealth.net/project/our-scientists/ - still seems to be only at the margins of consciousness in the growing ranks of doctors and activists who seek such reform. This movement was prompted by the deadly disaster of the man-made SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, its response and the continuing cover-ups of these egregious, corrupted, groupthunk, failings of the majorities of medical professionals, immunologists, virologists, vaccinologists, public health administrators, politicians and the mainstream media. A prominent enough action by even a minority of any one of these groups could have brought the whole juggernaut down.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to raise awareness of the need for all people, of all ages - especially women of childbearing age - to maintain at least 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L = 1 part in 20,000,000 by mass) 25-hydroxyvitamin D circulating in the bloodstream. In general, the only people who don't need proper vitamin D3 supplementation to attain this are infants who are breast-fed by their 25-hydroxyvitamin D replete moms.
25-hydroxyvitamin D (calcifediol, AKA calcidiol) is made, primarily in the liver, by hydroxylating vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) at the 25th carbon. Neither of these two molecules are hormones. They are not signaling molecules.
All medical professionals and immunologists know that a second hydroxylation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol), by the kidneys, maintains a very low (ca. 0.05 ng/mL) level in the bloodstream which is tightly controlled by feedback from the osteocytes and the parathyroid gland to regulate calcium-phosphate-bone metabolism.
They also know that 20 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D is generally sufficient to support this function of the kidneys, in producing this circulating calcitriol which functions as a hormone - a long-distance, blood-borne (also in the cerebro-spinal fluid), signaling molecule.
Governments and many doctors recommend supplemental vitamin D3 in quantities which are only marginally sufficient to maintain at least 20 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D, such as, for adults (without regard to body weight), 0.02 milligrams (20 micrograms = 800 IU) a day, on average.
This majority of doctors don't know that at least 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D is needed for proper immune system function. You can ascertain this fact in a few seconds by glancing at the graphs of the risks of both hospital acquired infections and surgical site infections plotted against pre-operative 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, in a sample of 770 generally morbidly obese patients who underwent the same Roux-en-Y gastric bypass operation for weight loss (a highly questionable intervention) at Massachusetts General Hospital. The combined graphs, annotated, are at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#00-50ngmL and the original 2014 article, which should be well known to every medical professional, is: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/articlepdf/1782085/soi130062.pdf.
There's no reason to believe that those suffering from obesity require higher levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D to run their immune systems. So the findings are reasonably extrapolated to the general population. With 50 ng/mL or more, the risk of each type of infection is about 2.5%. At 20 ng/mL, the risk of each kind of infection rises tenfold to about 25%. This is a perfectly normal level for someone who does not supplement vitamin D3 at all, or in quantities well above those recommended by governments and many doctors and who has not recently had a lot of ultraviolet B exposure of ideally white skin.
Many people have less than this, at least in winter - especially the elderly and those with dark or black skin. I recently met a nurse here in Melbourne, Australia - a beautiful African woman in her early thirties, who told me her 25-hydroxyvitamin D level was only 7 ng/mL (17 nmol/L). Many Africans and African Americans live further from the equator than Melbourne's 38° - the same latitude as San Francisco, Virginia, Portugal and Turkey. Some Islamic women in sunny Israel have less then 4 ng/mL: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#israel, due, primarily, to their sun avoidant lifestyle and clothing.
At least 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D is essential for good health. Much lower levels have been a problem for an increasing proportion of humanity since the migration to northern Europe ~60k years ago. Today, with better clothing, housing and glass-windowed vehicles - and, for good reason, sunscreen - most people gain only a very small amount of vitamin D3 via UV-B skin exposure.
Even if such ~293 nanometre UV-B light was available all year round, rather than only in the middle of cloud-free summer days, such as with special lamps, to rely on this to attain 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D would be a bad idea, since all UV-B damages DNA and so raises the risk of skin cancer.
There's very little vitamin D3 in food or multivitamins - nowhere near enough to attain the 50 ng/mL circulating vitamin D3 required for good health.
Fortunately, vitamin D3 supplementation in sufficient quantities is safe and inexpensive. This takes several months to raise the 25-hydroxyvitamin D level over 50 ng/mL.
In clinical emergencies, such as sepsis, COVID-19, Kawasaki disease, MIS-C etc. it is possible to raise the level over 50 ng/ml in about 4 days: for 70 kg BW, a single loading dose of 10 milligrams (400,000 IU) is sufficient. This would have saved the lives of most people who were killed by OVID-19.
The delay is due the need for hydroxylation in the liver. A single oral dose of 1 mg calcifediol (which *is* 25-hydroxyvitamin D) goes straight into circulation and raise the level safely over 50 ng/mL in four hours or less: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#4.7.
Government recommendations for vitamin D3 supplementation are defective firstly in aiming for too low a 25-hydroxyvitamin D and secondly by recommending the same crude daily average supplemental quantity for whole swaths of people, for instance "adults".
(3 of 3) Medical professionals, immunologists, virologists, epidemiologists, vaccinologists etc. need to know *why* 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D is needed for proper immune system function. The reasons are not complex, but have never been properly explained in the peer-reviewed literature. Here is a precis of my tutorial: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/02-intracrine/.
Many or most types of immune cell need a good supply of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, by diffusion from the bloodstream, through their plasma membrane, into their cytosol, to supply their intracrine (within the same cell) and paracrine (to nearby cells, usually of different types) signaling systems. These are essential to each cell's ability to alter its behavior according to its changing circumstances. A good supply of 25-hydroxyvitamin D does not, as frequently claimed, "regulate the immune system". It enables all the cells to respond properly so they collectively regulate the system,
These signaling systems have nothing to do with hormonal (endocrine) signaling. The immune system does not use hormonal signaling and is not affected significantly by the very low, stable, level of circulating calcitriol.
25-hydroxyvitamin D > calcitriol intracrine (sometimes incorrectly known as "autocrine") signaling involves the cell detecting a cell-type-specific condition, which causes it to create both 1-hydroxylase enzyme and "vitamin D receptor" (VDR, best thought of as the calcitriol receptor) molecules in their cytosol (the main body of the cell). If there is sufficient 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the cytosol, some of it is hydroxylated to calcitriol which binds to the VDR molecule, with the bound complex finding its way to the nucleus where it binds to retinol X. The triple complex then interacts with recognition elements in the DNA and cell-type specific DNA wrapping and unwrapping (histone) arrangements to up- and down-regulate the transcription of dozens to hundreds of genes. The pattern of gene transcription change is different for each cell-type, so each type changes its protein synthesis - and so its behaviour - in a way specific to that cell type.
25-hydroxyvitamin D > calcitriol intracrine signaling was first elucidated for macrophages and dendritic cells in the late 2000s by Prof. Martin Hewison and colleagues in the UK. In 2022, this was spectacularly extended to Th1 lymphocytes by a large team of U.S. researchers: Chauss et al. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-021-01080-3. For a summary of this dense cell-biology article: https://aminotheory.com/cv19/icu/#2021-Chauss. This Nobel Prize worthy research should be better known to all medical professionals and immunologists, yet I have two leading immunology textbooks here which don't mention vitamin D or intracrine signaling in their indexes.
These researchers showed that Th1 regulatory lymphocytes in the lungs of hospitalised COVID-19 patients remained stuck in their pro-inflammatory startup program, and never transitioned to their anti-inflammatory shutdown program, despite successfully detecting the signal to do so: the high level of a complement protein. This was due to the failure of each cell's 25-hydroxyvitamin D > calcitriol intracrine (they called it "autocrine") signaling system. This failure was due largely or entirely to an inadequate supply of 25-hydroxyvitamin D.
Humanity cannot thrive without proper vitamin D3 supplementation, as Prof. Wimalawansa recommends. For 70 kg 154 lb body weight without obesity, a good average daily amount is 0.125 milligrams (125 micrograms = 5000 IU). A larger amount can be taken every week or ten days.
0.125 mg a day is a gram every 22 years . Pharma grade vitamin D3 costs about USD$2.50 a gram, ex-factories. Only a few factories worldwide make it to this grade. None are owned by big multinational pharmaceutical companies. They convert cholesterol from wool fat into 7-dehydrocholesterol, as found in our skin, and break one of its carbon rings with ~293 nm UV-B light from special mercury vapour lamps: https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/B978-0-12-381978-9.10006-X.
About a tonne of vitamin D3 is needed each day to meet the needs of all humanity. At current prices this would cost about USD$1B a year. This needs to be split into capsules suitable for once a week or so supplementation in quantities suitable for children and adults with a wide range of body weights, with more for those suffering from obesity due to obesity reducing hydroxylation in the liver and increasing absorption of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the excess adipose tissue: https://5nn.info/temp/250hd-obesity/. Governments should support and encourage the voluntary adoption of regular, proper, vitamin D3 supplementation. They should support independent testing of commercial supplements, not manufacture it themselves.
Inadequate 25-hydroxyvitamin D causes increased severity and so transmission of, infectious diseases such as COVID-19, RSV, antibiotic resistant bacteria and surely monkeypox, influenza etc. It also raises the risk of pre-eclampsia, pre-term birth, low birth weight, autism, ADHD and mental retardation: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.2. Likewise dementia / neurodegeneration: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3 and autoimmune inflammatory diseases, such as MS, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, cluster headaches and migraine: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/06-adv/.
There are other important causes of autism and related disorders of neurodevelopment. Paracetamol / acetaminophen has long been known to raise the risk of ASA and the like, via in-utero and/or early childhood exposure. Avella-Carcia et al. 2016, "Acetaminophen use in pregnancy and neurodevelopment: attention function and autism spectrum symptoms" https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/45/6/1987/2617189 and Bauer et al. 2021, "Paracetamol use during pregnancy — a call for precautionary action" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-021-00553-7. Paracetamol / acetaminophen also causes emotional dulling (insensitivity) and increased risk-taking: https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/15/7/725/5897711 . Since the brain uses extremely subtle chemical signals to guide how individual neurons develop, it follows that any drug which affects neurons may have lasting impacts through altered neurodevelopment.
James Lyons-Weiler mentioned these and some other articles regarding paracetamol / acetaminophen in a book he wrote, and a letter he sent to 100 deans of schools of medicine in the USA: https://popularrationalism.substack.com/p/three-years-later-after-ipak-alerted, none of whom replied. He also cited research regarding vaccines and fever:
"In 2010, Shoffner et al., (2011 https://www.nature.com/articles/pr9201192) found that 71% of kids with regressive autism had an episode of fever > 101°F In 33% of these cases, the fever occurred right after vaccination – and none showed regression unless fever had occurred."
His whole Substack article is well worth reading.
There would be much less need for illness prevention by vaccination if everyone had at least 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D. If they did, the immune responses prompted by vaccination would be more robust. I am not sure to what extent this would reduce the sometimes devastating ill-effects of vaccination.
I don't know anyone better placed to bring the needed awareness of vitamin D3 to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and to those at the highest levels of health administration and the health freedom movement.
I can put you in touch with a doctor and vitamin D researcher who spent decades in the uniformed United States Health Service, rising to the level of Commander, who could find no part of the Service which was interested in vitamin D. He knows the biology - and the clueless, corrupted, nature of the health system - very well.
Other nutrients, including boron, magnesium, vitamin K2, zinc and omega 3 fatty acids are important. However, inadequate 25-hydroxyvitamin D is by far the most important, easily corrected, cause of human illness, neurological damage and death. A "balanced diet", whatever that means, does not provide more than a fraction of the vitamin D3 people need to be healthy.
What do you think of Mark Zuckerberg's letter to the Senate committee that recently got posted. I'm wondering how it might affect the Murthy vs. Missouri court case when it goes to the Supreme Court. His letter makes it clear in no uncertain terms that the Government exerted great pressure on them to censor. At the same time though, he says it was ultimately their responsibility and that if the government tries again, they will not bow down the next time. Thoughts?
From my understanding, the cases are only consolidated for discovery purposes at the district level, that is why Kennedy V Biden did not go to the Supreme Court with Murthy Case. And the Missouri plaintiffs opposed Kennedy’s intervention, not only at the district level when asked for consolidation, but also at every other level of court
Please explain how these cases are consolidated in your opinion? From my understanding, if Missouri plaintiffs do not provide the discovery to show that they were censored according to the Supreme Court guidelines set forth in Murthy, their can be dismissed at the district level,
Caution: Substack continues to deduct payments from your bank account even after a publication has ended which is what is happening to me on Dr Mercola's terminated publication. Substack continues to deduct double payment and there is no "Customer Service" to contact to resolve it. Beware!
As I'm sure you know, the Dark Horse YouTube (Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying) was demonetized for discussing ivermectin, creating a financial harm. Whatever the drug's effectiveness for COVID, should government agencies have the power to influence social media to shut down debate and impose monetary penalty? Does the government have special knowledge to conclude when science is settled?
The theory of continental drift was once considered baseless and wrongheaded until marine studies showed the magnetic orientation rocks laid down in spreading zones correlated neatly with reversals of the Earth's polarity. If bureaucrats were in charge, they would stifle every such surprising paradigm shift in science because all such shifts violate the accepted, popular model. Would questioning the famous USDA "food pyramid" (influenced by industry) have been demonetized? What about settled knowledge of putting a raw steak on a black eye?
Bureaucrats appointed by politicians might be the worst and most dangerous possible arbiters of truth one can imagine. Science is not a popularity contest and, despite the phrase "scientific consensus," even scientists end up with egg on their faces.
Exactly. Science has nothing to do with consensus -- it's about evidence, and advances by challenging what we think we know. Science and censorship are totally incompatible.
Bret Weinstein is a friend and I'm familiar with his experiences of censorship/demonitization on YouTube -- one of many unjust casualties of this censorship regime.
Immensely encouraging to learn this. Hopefully, the Supreme Court justices sense the growing tidal wave. Let Freedom Reign!
Suppression of certain ideas has cascading effects and harms, like an avalanche. The government's track record of picking winners and losers ($535 million in loan guarantees to Solyndra) hardly qualifies it to determine what we hear and read.
(1 of 3)
Dear Aaron,
This is extremely encouraging. Thanks for all your efforts. More on health below, in this multi-part comment.
You and your co-plaintiffs - now including Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - are at the vanguard of most of humanity's striving, since before recorded history, to free ourselves from thought and speech strangling programs of legions clueless do-gooders, bullies and tyrants.
This has long been a running battle, or series of skirmishes, based on threats and violence vs. persuasion and sometimes, though only occasionally effective, violent resistance, such as led to the establishment of the United States of America. Ideally the battle could be fought and won without violence, but this requires more than thoroughly persuasive arguments, because the legions of censorious, sometimes murderous, people who curtail our ability to communicate freely have no interest in such arguments.
To successfully argue the case, in ways which bring about lasting relief from censorship, there needs to be a consistent and powerful government structure which - despite the intentions of many who lead and populate governments and their agencies - can be turned into legally (and so with the implicit threat of state-ordered violence) enforceable arrangements which keep the censors at bay.
A powerful government structure on its own is no use. It is probably worse than useless since it is quickly populated and driven by censorious thugs and corruptniks. Examples abound, not least the surge of censorship in the UK and Europe, as documented by Eugyppius https://www.eugyppius.com and others and here in Australia, such as by Rebekah Barnett: https://news.rebekahbarnett.com.au.
In order to peacefully and successful use the structures of civilized government to enact lasting protections for freedom of speech, there needs to be court (and so bureaucracy, police and armed forces) enforceable principles, acts of parliament or whatever as foundations which the tyrants and those-who-know-best-and-curtail-wrong-thought-for-our-own-good must abide by.
Two such foundations for building further, lasting, foundations upon, are the Magna Carta and the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. There's nothing like the First Amendment in any other country I know of - certainly not here in Australia, or in the UK or European countries.
To prevail against those who would harm and kill us for violating their preferred modes of thought and expression, people need to be organised and able to communicate efficiently and reasonably freely. Face-to-face speech and hand-written communication have their limits. The printing press, electronic broadcast media and now Internet communications are far more powerful.
If all goes well, your combined court cases will find sufficient judicial support all the way to a Supreme Court judgement which provides a lasting precedent which protects freedom of speech in the USA.
Other countries citizens, mass media, governments and legislatures will surely be inspired, emboldened and empowered to enact similar provisions, ideally as constitutional amendments, over two centuries after the United States led the way.
Then, after a brief rest, y'all (or at least you and Robert F. Kennedy) will surely pursue further urgent matters of fundamental importance, including reforming the public health, food, agriculture and other regulatory authorities, and tackling the causes of chronic disease and neurological harm.
(2 of 3) Here is a crucial part of this work, which - despite the efforts of researchers and clinicians since at least 2008 https://www.grassrootshealth.net/project/our-scientists/ - still seems to be only at the margins of consciousness in the growing ranks of doctors and activists who seek such reform. This movement was prompted by the deadly disaster of the man-made SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, its response and the continuing cover-ups of these egregious, corrupted, groupthunk, failings of the majorities of medical professionals, immunologists, virologists, vaccinologists, public health administrators, politicians and the mainstream media. A prominent enough action by even a minority of any one of these groups could have brought the whole juggernaut down.
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to raise awareness of the need for all people, of all ages - especially women of childbearing age - to maintain at least 50 ng/mL (125 nmol/L = 1 part in 20,000,000 by mass) 25-hydroxyvitamin D circulating in the bloodstream. In general, the only people who don't need proper vitamin D3 supplementation to attain this are infants who are breast-fed by their 25-hydroxyvitamin D replete moms.
50 ng/mL is the minimum level for full immune system function. Please read the research cited and discussed at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/. This is a subset of a vast array of research which shows this to be the case. A summary with robotic voice narration is: https://brownstone.org/articles/vitamin-d-everything-you-need-to-know/.
25-hydroxyvitamin D (calcifediol, AKA calcidiol) is made, primarily in the liver, by hydroxylating vitamin D3 (cholecalciferol) at the 25th carbon. Neither of these two molecules are hormones. They are not signaling molecules.
All medical professionals and immunologists know that a second hydroxylation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D to 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (calcitriol), by the kidneys, maintains a very low (ca. 0.05 ng/mL) level in the bloodstream which is tightly controlled by feedback from the osteocytes and the parathyroid gland to regulate calcium-phosphate-bone metabolism.
They also know that 20 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D is generally sufficient to support this function of the kidneys, in producing this circulating calcitriol which functions as a hormone - a long-distance, blood-borne (also in the cerebro-spinal fluid), signaling molecule.
Governments and many doctors recommend supplemental vitamin D3 in quantities which are only marginally sufficient to maintain at least 20 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D, such as, for adults (without regard to body weight), 0.02 milligrams (20 micrograms = 800 IU) a day, on average.
This majority of doctors don't know that at least 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D is needed for proper immune system function. You can ascertain this fact in a few seconds by glancing at the graphs of the risks of both hospital acquired infections and surgical site infections plotted against pre-operative 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels, in a sample of 770 generally morbidly obese patients who underwent the same Roux-en-Y gastric bypass operation for weight loss (a highly questionable intervention) at Massachusetts General Hospital. The combined graphs, annotated, are at: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#00-50ngmL and the original 2014 article, which should be well known to every medical professional, is: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamasurgery/articlepdf/1782085/soi130062.pdf.
There's no reason to believe that those suffering from obesity require higher levels of 25-hydroxyvitamin D to run their immune systems. So the findings are reasonably extrapolated to the general population. With 50 ng/mL or more, the risk of each type of infection is about 2.5%. At 20 ng/mL, the risk of each kind of infection rises tenfold to about 25%. This is a perfectly normal level for someone who does not supplement vitamin D3 at all, or in quantities well above those recommended by governments and many doctors and who has not recently had a lot of ultraviolet B exposure of ideally white skin.
Many people have less than this, at least in winter - especially the elderly and those with dark or black skin. I recently met a nurse here in Melbourne, Australia - a beautiful African woman in her early thirties, who told me her 25-hydroxyvitamin D level was only 7 ng/mL (17 nmol/L). Many Africans and African Americans live further from the equator than Melbourne's 38° - the same latitude as San Francisco, Virginia, Portugal and Turkey. Some Islamic women in sunny Israel have less then 4 ng/mL: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#israel, due, primarily, to their sun avoidant lifestyle and clothing.
At least 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D is essential for good health. Much lower levels have been a problem for an increasing proportion of humanity since the migration to northern Europe ~60k years ago. Today, with better clothing, housing and glass-windowed vehicles - and, for good reason, sunscreen - most people gain only a very small amount of vitamin D3 via UV-B skin exposure.
Even if such ~293 nanometre UV-B light was available all year round, rather than only in the middle of cloud-free summer days, such as with special lamps, to rely on this to attain 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D would be a bad idea, since all UV-B damages DNA and so raises the risk of skin cancer.
There's very little vitamin D3 in food or multivitamins - nowhere near enough to attain the 50 ng/mL circulating vitamin D3 required for good health.
Fortunately, vitamin D3 supplementation in sufficient quantities is safe and inexpensive. This takes several months to raise the 25-hydroxyvitamin D level over 50 ng/mL.
In clinical emergencies, such as sepsis, COVID-19, Kawasaki disease, MIS-C etc. it is possible to raise the level over 50 ng/ml in about 4 days: for 70 kg BW, a single loading dose of 10 milligrams (400,000 IU) is sufficient. This would have saved the lives of most people who were killed by OVID-19.
The delay is due the need for hydroxylation in the liver. A single oral dose of 1 mg calcifediol (which *is* 25-hydroxyvitamin D) goes straight into circulation and raise the level safely over 50 ng/mL in four hours or less: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#4.7.
Government recommendations for vitamin D3 supplementation are defective firstly in aiming for too low a 25-hydroxyvitamin D and secondly by recommending the same crude daily average supplemental quantity for whole swaths of people, for instance "adults".
New Jersey based Professor of Medicine Sunil Wimalawansa has recommendations for how much vitamin D3 to supplement, on average per day, to attain at least 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D, without the need for blood tests or medical monitoring. The amount depends on body weight and obesity status: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#00-how-much. These are based on his article: "Rapidly Increasing Serum 25(OH)D Boosts the Immune System, against Infections - Sepsis and COVID-19" Nutrients 2022-07-21 http://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/14/14/2997 as simplified somewhat in his FLCCC webinar: https://odysee.com/@FrontlineCovid19CriticalCareAlliance:c/Weeekly_Webinar_Aug16_2023:d?t=3386.
Very encouraging indeed
This is very encouraging. There is hope!
(3 of 3) Medical professionals, immunologists, virologists, epidemiologists, vaccinologists etc. need to know *why* 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D is needed for proper immune system function. The reasons are not complex, but have never been properly explained in the peer-reviewed literature. Here is a precis of my tutorial: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/02-intracrine/.
Many or most types of immune cell need a good supply of 25-hydroxyvitamin D, by diffusion from the bloodstream, through their plasma membrane, into their cytosol, to supply their intracrine (within the same cell) and paracrine (to nearby cells, usually of different types) signaling systems. These are essential to each cell's ability to alter its behavior according to its changing circumstances. A good supply of 25-hydroxyvitamin D does not, as frequently claimed, "regulate the immune system". It enables all the cells to respond properly so they collectively regulate the system,
These signaling systems have nothing to do with hormonal (endocrine) signaling. The immune system does not use hormonal signaling and is not affected significantly by the very low, stable, level of circulating calcitriol.
25-hydroxyvitamin D > calcitriol intracrine (sometimes incorrectly known as "autocrine") signaling involves the cell detecting a cell-type-specific condition, which causes it to create both 1-hydroxylase enzyme and "vitamin D receptor" (VDR, best thought of as the calcitriol receptor) molecules in their cytosol (the main body of the cell). If there is sufficient 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the cytosol, some of it is hydroxylated to calcitriol which binds to the VDR molecule, with the bound complex finding its way to the nucleus where it binds to retinol X. The triple complex then interacts with recognition elements in the DNA and cell-type specific DNA wrapping and unwrapping (histone) arrangements to up- and down-regulate the transcription of dozens to hundreds of genes. The pattern of gene transcription change is different for each cell-type, so each type changes its protein synthesis - and so its behaviour - in a way specific to that cell type.
25-hydroxyvitamin D > calcitriol intracrine signaling was first elucidated for macrophages and dendritic cells in the late 2000s by Prof. Martin Hewison and colleagues in the UK. In 2022, this was spectacularly extended to Th1 lymphocytes by a large team of U.S. researchers: Chauss et al. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41590-021-01080-3. For a summary of this dense cell-biology article: https://aminotheory.com/cv19/icu/#2021-Chauss. This Nobel Prize worthy research should be better known to all medical professionals and immunologists, yet I have two leading immunology textbooks here which don't mention vitamin D or intracrine signaling in their indexes.
These researchers showed that Th1 regulatory lymphocytes in the lungs of hospitalised COVID-19 patients remained stuck in their pro-inflammatory startup program, and never transitioned to their anti-inflammatory shutdown program, despite successfully detecting the signal to do so: the high level of a complement protein. This was due to the failure of each cell's 25-hydroxyvitamin D > calcitriol intracrine (they called it "autocrine") signaling system. This failure was due largely or entirely to an inadequate supply of 25-hydroxyvitamin D.
Humanity cannot thrive without proper vitamin D3 supplementation, as Prof. Wimalawansa recommends. For 70 kg 154 lb body weight without obesity, a good average daily amount is 0.125 milligrams (125 micrograms = 5000 IU). A larger amount can be taken every week or ten days.
"5000 International Units" sounds scarily high, especially if vitamin D is mistakenly thought to be a hormone. It is not, as Reinhold Vieth wrote in 2004 https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/j.jsbmb.2004.03.037. See also https://vitamindstopscovid.info/02-intracrine/#02-nothorm.
0.125 mg a day is a gram every 22 years . Pharma grade vitamin D3 costs about USD$2.50 a gram, ex-factories. Only a few factories worldwide make it to this grade. None are owned by big multinational pharmaceutical companies. They convert cholesterol from wool fat into 7-dehydrocholesterol, as found in our skin, and break one of its carbon rings with ~293 nm UV-B light from special mercury vapour lamps: https://sci-hub.se/10.1016/B978-0-12-381978-9.10006-X.
About a tonne of vitamin D3 is needed each day to meet the needs of all humanity. At current prices this would cost about USD$1B a year. This needs to be split into capsules suitable for once a week or so supplementation in quantities suitable for children and adults with a wide range of body weights, with more for those suffering from obesity due to obesity reducing hydroxylation in the liver and increasing absorption of 25-hydroxyvitamin D in the excess adipose tissue: https://5nn.info/temp/250hd-obesity/. Governments should support and encourage the voluntary adoption of regular, proper, vitamin D3 supplementation. They should support independent testing of commercial supplements, not manufacture it themselves.
The pharmaceutical industry has long waged a campaign of dismissal and lies against efforts to raise awareness of the need for proper vitamin D3 supplementation. See https://nutritionmatters.substack.com/p/dr-pierre-kory-talks-with-tucker and Bill Grant's 2018 article: "Vitamin D acceptance delayed by Big Pharma following the Disinformation Playbook", Orthomolecular Medicine News Service: https://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v14n22.shtml.
Inadequate 25-hydroxyvitamin D causes increased severity and so transmission of, infectious diseases such as COVID-19, RSV, antibiotic resistant bacteria and surely monkeypox, influenza etc. It also raises the risk of pre-eclampsia, pre-term birth, low birth weight, autism, ADHD and mental retardation: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.2. Likewise dementia / neurodegeneration: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/00-evi/#3.3 and autoimmune inflammatory diseases, such as MS, psoriasis, rheumatoid arthritis, cluster headaches and migraine: https://vitamindstopscovid.info/06-adv/.
There are other important causes of autism and related disorders of neurodevelopment. Paracetamol / acetaminophen has long been known to raise the risk of ASA and the like, via in-utero and/or early childhood exposure. Avella-Carcia et al. 2016, "Acetaminophen use in pregnancy and neurodevelopment: attention function and autism spectrum symptoms" https://academic.oup.com/ije/article/45/6/1987/2617189 and Bauer et al. 2021, "Paracetamol use during pregnancy — a call for precautionary action" https://www.nature.com/articles/s41574-021-00553-7. Paracetamol / acetaminophen also causes emotional dulling (insensitivity) and increased risk-taking: https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/15/7/725/5897711 . Since the brain uses extremely subtle chemical signals to guide how individual neurons develop, it follows that any drug which affects neurons may have lasting impacts through altered neurodevelopment.
James Lyons-Weiler mentioned these and some other articles regarding paracetamol / acetaminophen in a book he wrote, and a letter he sent to 100 deans of schools of medicine in the USA: https://popularrationalism.substack.com/p/three-years-later-after-ipak-alerted, none of whom replied. He also cited research regarding vaccines and fever:
"In 2010, Shoffner et al., (2011 https://www.nature.com/articles/pr9201192) found that 71% of kids with regressive autism had an episode of fever > 101°F In 33% of these cases, the fever occurred right after vaccination – and none showed regression unless fever had occurred."
His whole Substack article is well worth reading.
There would be much less need for illness prevention by vaccination if everyone had at least 50 ng/mL circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D. If they did, the immune responses prompted by vaccination would be more robust. I am not sure to what extent this would reduce the sometimes devastating ill-effects of vaccination.
I don't know anyone better placed to bring the needed awareness of vitamin D3 to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and to those at the highest levels of health administration and the health freedom movement.
I can put you in touch with a doctor and vitamin D researcher who spent decades in the uniformed United States Health Service, rising to the level of Commander, who could find no part of the Service which was interested in vitamin D. He knows the biology - and the clueless, corrupted, nature of the health system - very well.
Other nutrients, including boron, magnesium, vitamin K2, zinc and omega 3 fatty acids are important. However, inadequate 25-hydroxyvitamin D is by far the most important, easily corrected, cause of human illness, neurological damage and death. A "balanced diet", whatever that means, does not provide more than a fraction of the vitamin D3 people need to be healthy.
If everyone had at least 50 ng/mL, sepsis would be very rare. The Global Burden of Disease project reported that sepsis killed 11 million people worldwide, in 2017: https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(19)32989-7/fulltext .
Sincerely
Robin Whittle Daylesford, Victoria, Australia.
Dr. Kheriaty, (and fellow subscribers!!)
What do you think of Mark Zuckerberg's letter to the Senate committee that recently got posted. I'm wondering how it might affect the Murthy vs. Missouri court case when it goes to the Supreme Court. His letter makes it clear in no uncertain terms that the Government exerted great pressure on them to censor. At the same time though, he says it was ultimately their responsibility and that if the government tries again, they will not bow down the next time. Thoughts?
Please elaborate.
From my understanding, the cases are only consolidated for discovery purposes at the district level, that is why Kennedy V Biden did not go to the Supreme Court with Murthy Case. And the Missouri plaintiffs opposed Kennedy’s intervention, not only at the district level when asked for consolidation, but also at every other level of court
Please explain how these cases are consolidated in your opinion? From my understanding, if Missouri plaintiffs do not provide the discovery to show that they were censored according to the Supreme Court guidelines set forth in Murthy, their can be dismissed at the district level,
Caution: Substack continues to deduct payments from your bank account even after a publication has ended which is what is happening to me on Dr Mercola's terminated publication. Substack continues to deduct double payment and there is no "Customer Service" to contact to resolve it. Beware!
This is good news and I’m hoping SCOTUS gets it right this time!!