Well, in my satire on the presidential declaration of a national emergency it seems that I got my numbers wrong about the amount of death from vitamin D deficiency.   I had used 400,000 deaths that is an extrapolation used in William Grants paper on what would happen if everyone in the US were to take 2000 IU of D3 per day.  “Reducing the Burden of Disease Through Adequate Intake of Vitamin D3.” http://www.sunarc.org/GrantGrassrootsHealth.pdf Since Dr. Grant wrote this paper that used data from 2001 new research has come to light.

I received an email today from the John Cannell, Vitamin D Council, that said that William Faloon, Co-Founded of Life Extension Foundation, had written a new article with a retraction of his data from the letter of 2007.  http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2007/oct2007_awsi_01.htm His new numbers that appeared in the January, 2009 issue of Life Extension Magazine shows that there could be well over a million deaths in the US every year from vitamin D deficiency.  http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2009/jan2009_Millions-of-Needless-Deaths_01.htm

So what are we to believe?  I always like to check my data from an independent source.  If we consider that vitamin D has the possibility of reducing all chronic disease by 40 percent what would that mean for America?  If you will recall my post on Health Care Reform Heal the People we found that the death rate in Mexico is 4.8 per 1000 per year and in the US the death rate is 8.4 per 1000 per year,  or 43% less deaths per year in Mexico.  CIA Fact Sheets:  https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2066rank.html So you ask what the disparity of data is.  Do they have a better health care system?  The answer of course is that they are a sun-splashed country in the lower latitudes which means they most likely have higher vitamin D levels than the US.  And not only that,  but much of the population lives above 5000 ft which is above much of the atmospheric moisture and pollutions and this allows a higher incidence of UVB radiation to make vitamin D.  Also their winters are not as cold so more of the human body is exposed because they simply wear fewer clothes.

The death rate in the US of 8.4 minus the death rate of 4.8 is 3.6 per 1000 population per year.  If we take that most of this is from the difference in vitamin D levels then the US could reduce death by 3.6 times 307,000 thousand (307 million US population) per year.  This works out to 1,150,000 people per year.  If we say that there are more deaths because we have more cars and higher incidence of toxins because we are (were) a more industrialized nation, we would still have well over a million less deaths from vitamin D3 deficiency every year.  This would decimate the medical and medical insurance industries to say nothing of big pharma and over-the-counter goods sold at retail as remedies for whatever.  If the deaths are reduced by this much imagine how much less suffering and pain there would be from disease.

This is one heck of a survivor story as Mexico has significantly less death and suffering than the US because of vitamin D3.  I know the above may not be very scientific but it makes a lot of just plain common sense.  Imagine the millions of needless deaths in other countries because of this dread deficiency in a world with a population 6.7 billion people with a large portion living at the higher latitudes.

William Faloon sent this article to all Congressmen and Senators:  http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2009/jan2009_Millions-of-Needless-Deaths_01.htm

While you are basking in the sun write your Congressman, The President, and the Secretary of Health and tell your friends.    – Pandemic Survivor