IV Vitamin C and Covid 19

Yesterday morning, I literally heard two medical doctors and a nurse confirm that, in their opinions, it is more ethical to allow a patient to die than to “experiment” on them with high dose intravenous vitamin C. They said this with straight faces, while telling us that we should have allowed them to experiment on the patient with Remdesivir and Baricitinib, and shrugging off the actual, visible, measurable, damage they caused with both an anxiety medication and a diuretic. The potentially deadly risks of these medications are acceptable, in their eyes. The risk of a possible kidney stone from too much vitamin C is not.

There are three big problems I’m seeing here:

1. Incentivization of hospitals to use particular meds and protocols undermines the purpose of medicine, which should be to save and improve lives.

2. Penalizing individual practitioners and hospitals for using non-EUA or FDA approved and non-incentivized protocols–protocols that are saving lives–violates the sanctity of the doctor/patient relationship and endangers lives.

3. Condescending, cavalier attitudes, fostered by lack of desire on the part of individual practitioners and hospital management to be open to and educated on life saving protocols, create an adversarial relationship between doctors, patients, and family members, negatively impacting the health of patients.

“Standard of Care,” and FDA approval–EUA or otherwise–have become roadblocks to better health, and vehicles for price gouging and denial of life-saving treatment. Patients have become commodities, rather than individuals. The motto “First do no harm” has been twisted to mean “don’t use anything that is not FDA approved and/or incentivized.”

Here is a sampling of the volumes of evidence of the benefit of applying high dose IV vitamin C therapy to life-threatening health conditions associated with COVID-19, including sepsis and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).

Articles and Studies on IV Vitamin C

Vitamin C as a Possible Therapy for COVID-19

https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/317374/ic_52_222.pdf?sequence=1

Overview of the Possible Role of Vitamin C in Management of Covid-19

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s43440-020-00176-1

The Emerging Role of Vitamin C the Prevention and Treatment of Covid-19

(Specific references to ARDS)

https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/11/3286/htm

The Effect of Vitamin C on Pathological Parameters and Survival Duration of Critically Ill Coronavirus Disease 2019 Patients: A Randomized Clinical Trial

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34975830/

Intravenous Vitamin C as Adjunctive Therapy for Enterovirus/Rhinovirus Induced Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28224112/

Video Overview of One Study on Vitamin C and Sepsis Induced ARDS

Vitamin C and Sepsis Induced ARDS (5 minutes)

https://edhub.ama-assn.org/jn-learning/video-player/17998543

Full Video Presentation on the Study

https://edhub.ama-assn.org/jn-learning/video-player/17998541?widget=personalizedcontent&previousarticle=17998543

The Study

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31573637/

It’s time we remove all financial incentives to doctors and hospitals for the use of specific interventions. It is time we pass legislation to protect the doctor/patient relationship and protect the ability of doctors to inform patients of all options and protect the right of patients to choose–from among all options.

What can you do right now?

Inform every medical professional you work with of the value of IV vitamin C–even over oral vitamin C–using the studies above.

Insist, professionally, but firmly, that your friends and family members be given access to and complete information on all potentially life-saving options, regardless of “Standard of Care,” FDA approval (EUA or otherwise), or other financial or philosophical or political prejudice.

Medical professionals must come to understand that there are things they could and should be doing to save lives, and that refusing patients the option to choose potentially life-saving treatments can be the worst harm of all.

Contact your legislators right now: le.utah.gov > My Legislators! The Utah 2022 Legislative session begins on January 18.

Let them know that you are deeply concerned about the sanctity of the doctor/patient relationship and that you support legislation protecting the privacy of that relationship and the ability of doctors to offer options to their patients, without penalty. Let them know that it is critical that each of us have full information on any medical intervention and all possible options made available to us, so that we can make the best decisions for our individual bodies.

Let’s open this conversation. The more people talk about it, the more likely it is that we can change the medical climate organically or pass legislation that forces much needed change.