We’ve previously discussed the case of the New Zealand farmer who was left for dead by his doctors, but recovered from a viral infection thanks to 100 g/day vitamin C. (He also now holds the record for the quickest known recovery from hairy cell leukemia!)
Tomorrow, I’ll say a bit more about vitamin C and immunity. But, since I’ve been posting videos on Saturdays lately, let’s keep that tradition going.
Here is a fascinating video, from New Zealand’s version of 60 Minutes, showing the progression of Alan Smith’s case from death’s door to recovery. Highly recommended! (Hat tip: C: the blog.)
UPDATE: See the fascinating follow-up video, linked by angelyne in the comments, made by 60 Minutes a month after the first one. Toward the end it tells the story of an Australian girl who had been in a coma for a month. After learning of Alan Smith’s recovery, her family persuaded the hospital to put her on intravenous vitamin C. She partially recovered, her lungs cleared and she was taken off respiratory support. But then the hospital took her off vitamin C. She died soon after. Very frustrating, since the fears of vitamin C toxicity are greatly exaggerated.
via this link:
Any idea how the family learned about the high-dose Vitamin C therapy?
No, but my next blog post will be about the history of vitamin C treatment of viral infections, which they probably learned about via Google.
Have you seen the follow-up video on that same site?
http://www.3news.co.nz/Vitamin-C-Is-it-really-a-key-factor-in-recovery/tabid/371/articleID/176251/Default.aspx
I wanted to hit that smug doctor she interviewed. There in a nutshell is what is wrong with the system. Hospitals follow established procedures to the point of absurdity and leave the research up to the pharmaceutical companies whose only interest are in creating designer molecules they can patent.
One has to wonder where in this rotten system, innovation can possibly occur. It sometimes seems to me that we haven’t moved away all that much from the days of heroic medicine http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heroic_medicine
angelyne, thanks much. I’ve updated the post to give more attention to your great link.
I do think, though, that we’ve moved away from Heroic medicine into something different: Passive-aggressive medicine.
“Any idea how the family learned about the high-dose Vitamin C therapy?”
I don’t, but if it’s commonly used by veterinarians, then it wouldn’t be surprising that farmers would be familiar with it.
If you want to know what vitamin C and natural medicine Has done and Can do, read about Dr F R Klenner. I did 3 years ago, It is one of the most fascinating stories I have ever read. In the last year, Google hits has gone from 46,000 hits to 790,000.
Don’t use google hit counts as anything more than a funny statistic. I got 67000. In any case, I think this is the story you’re referring to:
http://www.doctoryourself.com/klennerbio.html
of course, maybe he went off the deep end:
…and maybe not.
Hi Paul,
Curious to hear your thoughts on the antioxidant Astaxanthin. It’s supposed to be much stronger than C or E in terms of health benefits.
Thanks!
Hi Eve,
I’m mildly positive toward it. The literature generally shows it to be beneficial, but antioxidants in general have a mixed record and so I’m cautious enough not to have a strong opinion. It seems to heighten immune responses which could be good or bad, but probably more often good than bad: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21930306, http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20205737. It showed mixed results against cancer, potentially preventing tumor initiation but promoting growth of established tumors: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20651366.
I have hairy cell leukemia for the third time in 12 years and am looking into intravenous vitamin C as an alternative treatment. I would really like to talk to someone with firsthand experience in treating HCL with vitamin C. Any suggestions?