More on Vitamin D - Dr. John Cambell video here - he reviews an Australian study on extensive Vitamin D deficiencies in the UK and expresses similar disgust at the recent NICE review announcement here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwaq4oRnpjY
An additional useful video explainer on Vitamin D from Medcram and Dr Seheult :
Vitamin D and Covid19 -
The Evidence for Prevention and Treatment of Coronavirus (SARS CoV 2) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ha2mLz-Xdpg
I dont think anyone is proposing that this is a 'magic bullet', but it certainly looks like a deficiency or inadequacy may be a risk factor for severe disease - everyone agrees that further study is needed. The association and correlations are well established; we need to determine if causation is also present.
The bit that makes me incredulous is that much of data has been available for months, with the final conclusion that further study is needed in RCTs, and yet there are NO major Randomised Controlled Trials of sufficient size to confirm or refute the benefits underway as far as I can tell in the Western world.
Why not? Why are governments in the UK/ EU/ US not funding this work as a matter of urgency?
Do we really have to wait for this data to emerge out of India, Egypt, the Americas etc? These research centres are reputable and companies use them extensively to generate data for support of licence applications and sales and marketing of other pharmaceuticals.
Pharmaceutical companies will not be undertaking this work - there is no money in it for them, so the work has to paid for and led by regulatory authorities and health organisations such as the NIH and CDC, or in the UK by PHE or the Department of Health, or in the EU the EMA and associated bodies. Additionally the work has to be prioritised - it will be no use to anyone if the results do not arrive for 1-2 years.
The rapid arrival of vaccines is wonderful, but they are not and cannot be a panacea. Not only are there issues associated with speed of manufacture to provide rapid universal coverage, but they also will not work well in people with an immune system that is not functioning adequately. Ensuring vitamin D adequacy (amongst other things) can only help to ensure that the vaccines work and work well in the people they are given to. Additionally there are risks of mutations that at some point will result in a loss of vaccine efficacy. There are also sizeable sectors of populations who will not accept vaccination or vaccines and it will take some years to persuade them otherwise (this is another topic for another time, but is a serious and considerable problem being made worse by censorship moves in social media).
At best Vitamin D use to ensure adequacy should be adjunctive therapy - and this information could be communicated to individuals as a sensible self help option to reduce risks of severe disease.
I simply don't understand why governments are not advocating that people self help in this manner, and why they are not funding the necessary research to answer the outstanding questions - it is critically important to reduce the patient load in hospitals, and to help ensure that economies can return to normal as rapidly as possible. Surely we should be using and exploring every possible avenue, especially if the data is confirmed that this simple measure can help to reduce morbidity and mortality?
We will still need new and novel pharmaceutical interventions: there is no conflict here. I simply do not understand why this work has not already been done - but more than that, why the work is not even underway.
