Author Archives: Mark Pegram

Sunday Daybreak

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Winter Tones

Grey tones define our days as soft rain
Draws us to the desire of sun and its nourishment
And we know that this cannot last forever
Yet there is peace and joy in this solitude

My body aches from lack of summer days
But this peace brought on by the cold
Is truly an understanding that the renewal
Is only moments away from true restoration

With body in a defenseless mode
I am weary from the lack of warmth
And in particular there is the desire
That is beyond my understanding

A ray of sun then stills itself on my forehead
From the bright spectral clouds before me
And hope springs into mind as I know now
Defines the fulfillment of hope, faith, and love

Original Verse – Mark Pegram

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Sunday Morning Musings

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So what is going on with influenza like illness?  We have seen a significant drop in the rate after a spike in September and October.  We are now at rates that are very similar to last year in late January.  Given that we see a 33% Fibonacci return in this chaotic statistic, the knee will mirror 2009 February and March results or just another normal flu season. Graph at this link.

There has been much chatter about the efficaciousness of the H1N1 vaccine.  The EU in particular is taking on the large pharmaceuticals over this issue.  I believe that the H1N1 is a none-mutating virus to date and has effectively played havoc with people that were susceptible.  The reason that the spike occurred in September and October instead of later is because this is the first drop in serum levels of vitamin D in the northern latitudes.  A similar type of occurrence happened in the southern hemisphere in our summer which makes me wonder at the push by our government over the vaccine.  We have been much more effective is getting the message out about vitamin D.  If the spike in February is not similar to last year and also make a Fibonacci return then people in the US have blunted the virus by taking vitamin D.  I know that this is a very technical mathematical predication, but if you deal with stocks or currency trading, you know this analysis is correct.  The technical changes are very predictable in chaotic markets as long as there is not a fundamental change like an economic news such as an increase in the number of lost jobs.  In our case the fundamental change is increased use of vitamin D.

I have been keeping up with people that I have casual conversations about vitamin D and whether their doctor has ask to check their serum 25(OH)D levels.  I am happy to say that approximately 1 out of 6 of the people that I have talked with has had their serum level checked.  This is up from zero 5 years ago.  Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council goal is to have every one’s serum vitamin D routinely check by their physician.  John, I believe that we are starting to reach a tipping point.   However, even at this low rate we could see as much as a 5% drop in the rate of total cancer in the US over the next two years.  I know that this is a bold prediction but the research is there.  If the Food and Nutrition Board on vitamin D comes out with a favorable report in May saying that everyone should take more, the amount of reduction in cancer will amaze you as well as heart disease and diabetes in more time as these diseases take longer to respond.  The manufacturers of cold remedies will start to feel the pinch as people start to use significantly less.  They will simply create other products to fill the voids.

Interesting article at Boots WebMD saying that increased levels of vitamin D could reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer by 40%.  I do not know what the big deal is.  In November of 2007 the National Cancer Institute came out with a report as a rebuttal to the Lappe finding at Creighton University.  The Lappe finding showed a 60% ( or 77% when taking out the tumors not found in the initial screening that occurred in the first year of the trial) reduction in total cancer in a placebo control double blind study.  NCI did an epidemiological study based on flawed data (questionable and two few actual test data on serum levels of vitamin D) and even then as you read through the abstract it said something to the effect that there was no relationship between higher vitamin D levels and cancer except that there was a 75% reduction in death from colorectal cancer in the higher quintals of vitamin D.  Well dang NCI isn’t this enough to trigger treatment trials with people with cancer and not just prevention trials.  Maybe they are not just ignoring the facts but acting with disdain.  Given these numbers you can see why I think that just a modest improvement in supplementation and (trips to the Caribbean or Hawaii in the winter for you rich people) will have significant impact on cancer.

You know one of the things that I have notice when talking with people is the lack of consistency in taking vitamin D.  They typically take two small an amount when supplementing or they just skip days while taking this small amount.  Remember the serum half life of vitamin D at 30 ng/ml is approximately three weeks.  This means that after three weeks with no supplementation or exposure to tanning that your serum level is 15 ng/ml.  At higher rates this half life is much reduce.  I need to do more reading on this, but I found one study that said that the half life at 100 ng/ml was only 5 days.  This seems like two short amount of time but if it is correct then compliance when supplementing is extremely critical.  This also explains why people at latitudes close to the equator catch viruses more easily in the rainy season when there is not much sun.

Ah, for a two week repose on the garden island of Kauai that would drive away the winter blues and chronic disease.  Maybe I can make that happen if I were president.  I would certainly declare a national emergency for vitamin D deficiency.  Living easy with the sun in my mind and vitamin D supplements at hand –  Pandemic Survivor

Love in Health and Illness

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I attended a white coat ceremony this past weekend.  No it was not a KKK meeting nor was it on the white house lawn.  It was the initiation of medical students in moving from the classroom to their start of training in practice with actual patients.  This has long been the practice of medical schools as a way to tell students that they have the ability to deal with patients under the management of their professional medical trainer.  It also allows patients that are in contact with these neophytes that they have had enough training to start the art of medicine.  I want go into the detail but was amazed to learn that the type of coat that you wear is a code for your level of training.

It was your typical moving on ceremony but one of the speakers gave the students some really great advice.  He went on to describe how he was a ‘very get it done’ type of medical practitioner.  He believed that the best thing that he could do for his patients was to determine the type of treatment needed and then deliver the procedures to them.  However, as he practiced he became more aware that healing was best delivered when he had the patients know that he understood their concerns and that he truly cared about their well being.  His advice to the students was to show their patients that they understood and truly cared about them.  Some may call this love.

1 Cor. 13:13 NIV “And now these three remain, faith, hope, and love.  But the greatest of these is love.

Studies have shown that mothers produce enormous amounts of oxytocin.  This is otherwise known as the love hormone.  New studies have shown that this same hormone is produced in persons that have skin to skin contact with another individual.  What is it about this closeness that causes our bodies to react?  I personally do not believe that you have to have the contact but just someone that is willing to listen to your complaints and react positively to you that they understand your ‘pain’ and truly care about you.  I know that this was the thing that I truly desired when I was in pain for all of those years.  I just wanted someone to hold me and tell me they cared.  I did not realized that this was actually shown in science to be an active form of treatment.

To show you how this works you may have heard of the study that was done sometime in the mid-twentieth century with lights and factory workers.  When the management decided to add increase lighting to the plant floor the productivity of the workers increased.  Strange enough when they went in and reduced the lighting to a lower level the productivity increased again.  The effect was not so much the light as it was that the workers knew by the presence of management that the management cared about their well being.  You may have also heard about a study that was done with babies where they were separated into two groups.  One group was held normally and cared for.  The other group was given minimal contact and the study was stopped after the first baby died from lack of personal contact and all the babies in the noncontact group were developing poor health.  It just sounds like common sense that we should be aware that this carries on into our adult life.  It has been shown that people with a strong support group such as a church that they have a healthier life as well as a longer life.

Know that I care about your health and that I understand your pain and the many chronic diseases that you may be developing or that you have from the years of being scared out of the sun.  It is with this love that I write to you as often as I possibly can so that you may be healed.

When scientific studies are now done, they are double blind, placebo controlled, large cohort so that the effect of love and care is subtracted from the procedure or substance that is being studied.  For your doctors to act with arrogance in that you do not know anything about what is going on in your body may be said about the doctors themselves.  Sometimes the placebo or love and care effect is much greater than the effect that is being studied.  So this professor giving the advice to the students is truly a wise man.

In care of concern for your health; know that I love you and this drives my purpose in writing this blog.

–          Pandemic Survivor

Vitamin D and the Doctor III

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“Hope and Elation – Frustration and Anger – Fear and Loathing: The contrasting emotional responses to the Revolutionary Discoveries in MS made by Dr Zamboni”. – Dr Ashton Embry, Ph. D gives us this quote:  “Hell hath no fury like a researcher proven wrong or disenfranchised.”   www.direct-ms.org; when discussing the resistance to implementing the new treatment for MS that is a true break through. 

Can we get a better grip on the understanding of what doctors are like when facing a completely new radical understanding of health, there is this huge resistance to change.  This could very well be a good thing when the possibility of side effects can cause more harm than do good.  However, what is wrong with keeping the patient’s serum level of vitamin D to that of a sunny country or at a ‘summer level’ all year.  We tend to feel so much better in the summer than in the winter.

Dr. Embry’s frustration above is being described as that of a researcher that has been ‘barking up the wrong tree’ for thirty years or longer.  We find a similar episode in vitamin D where one of the super heroes of the vitamin D movement is fired from his job by a dermatologist no less after writing a book for retail. (His book is a great read – http://www.uvadvantage.org/ ) I am referring to Dr. Michael Holick of Boston University.  The University had the good sense to keep him on in another capacity.  Here is the detail of that battle from Dr. John Cannell of the Vitamin D Council in the February 2006 newsletter.  http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/newsletter/2006-feb.shtml

These researchers are putting their careers on the line for your health.  There is no money to be made from trying to get the medical profession to change.  Their only reward is your health.

Your doctor can only follow the guidelines and if your insurance does not cover the cost of a serum 25(OH)D test your doctor will most likely not follow through.   “There is no medical evidence that getting your vitamin D to a summer level will help your illness”, he will tell you.  What he means is that the treatment guideline for your illness does not have normalizing the serum vitamin D level as part of the treatment protocol.  This means until our heroes of the vitamin D movement get those changes made, you are responsible for being replete.

I have been really tough on doctors and maybe I should not have been.  I really am still upset with the researchers that have let the benefits of vitamin D go unpublished in the hopes of making and selling an analog for profit.  So why have we gone for so long when there is not just a magic bullet for one disease but there is a ‘magic shotgun’ (Oliver Gillie in Sunlight Robbery http://www.healthresearchforum.org.uk/sunlight.html ) for most chronic disease.

So let’s just list the things that have made this understanding of vitamin D so difficult for doctors:

  1. First, doctors have been trained in med school that vitamin D is highly toxic and to not even consider supplementation because just a small amount of sunshine is enough for strong bones.
  2. Efficacy issues comes from claims that D2 and D3 are equal and maybe this is true if you are only taking D for bone health at 400 IU per day.  Part of the issue with D2 is that you radiate fungus to make it, and over-radiation will cause isomers of vitamin D that are highly toxic.  D3 is concentrated from lambs wool and fat is less likely to form toxic sterols because there is no radiation involved in the process.  Only D2 is available as a prescription med.
  3. The amount of D3 is so small that errors in dosage could easily be made.  The suggested upper limit by the researchers is just 0.25 mg or 10,000 IU.  The upper limit now is 2000 IU or 0.05 mg or 50 micrograms.
  4. The really confusing thing is that there have been only a hand full of toxicity cases in the last fifty years with vitamin D3 and most of these were manufacturing errors by a factor of 1000 or more.   For example instead of 2000 IU; 2,000,000 IU was given.  Details on toxicity by Dr. John Cannell from 2003 http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/PDFs/toxicity-of-vitamin-d.pdf
  5. There have been many serious toxicity cases with D2 and in trials when using the steroid form of vitamin D, 1,25 dihydroxyvitamin D, thus causing the fear of toxicity
  6. Vitamin D is not a disease specific nutrient and has an impact on all metabolic diseases or diseases that can be related to the endocrine system.  This is really difficult for doctors to believe.

Your local doctor is in general a conscientious professional and will help you though the understanding of vitamin D if you ask nicely.  But then again he may not, because his belief that one vitamin has more than a single response in the body, namely bone health is absurd because that is what he learned in medical school.  If this is the case, for your health, the responsibility is yours.

I know that this may fly in the face of what you have always believed about your relationship with your doctor, but the truth is modern allopathic medicine has reached a ‘cookie cutter’ state that does not fit individual needs.  You have spent years of bad nutrition that has created disease, even if you followed the guidelines for nutrition to the best of your understanding.  The doctor tries to bring you back to health using drugs and surgery.  Your responsibility is to be sure that your levels of essential nutrients are where they should be.

There are institutional issues with what is the best available nutrition and what is the best available technology for treating disease.  I heard one doctor in a talk about 25 years ago say that all chronic disease is the result of poor nutrition.  I now believe that he is correct.  Institutions have ignored what is the best available understanding of medicine and nutrition for profit.  This has happened through specialization.  Each member of a research team or a medical institution is assigned a specific task and he does his best to complete the task.  The moral obligation for the people that the institution serves falls to the head of the institution?  However, the CEO or Director or Administrator believes that their job is the survival and economic health of the institution.  Who holds the moral obligation?  This type of failure in systems holds true whether it is a three man squad in battle or the NIH.  Who holds the moral compass for the NIH?  Is it the Secretary of Health or the President?  I am sure in the mind of each it is passed on to someone else.  Based on that meeting of ‘white coat’ doctors on the White House lawn to discuss health care, I think the feeling is that the moral obligation ends up in the doctor’s hands.  I am sure the doctors do not feel this same obligation as long they are following the practice guidelines.  The truth is that you hold the responsibility for your own health and can take the advice of professionals for what it is worth.

I remember in 1985 what my doctor said to me when I was using ‘his language’ to talk about my back pain as I had accepted the responsibility.  “You are using all of the right words, but do you know what you are talking about.”  In other words, he was telling me to just ‘shut the h— up and to take what he was saying at face value.’  I was effective enough for him to send me in for x-ray of my back after seven years of just telling me I had muscle strain.  After the x-rays he sent me a letter of apology to keep me from suing him.  That was nice.  Unfortunately he had not bothered to read the science and did not ask to check my vitamin D level even though Dr. Michael Holick had discovered the mechanisms of how vitamin D worked in the body and published 10 years earlier.  It is not too much to expect the best available from our doctors but it is never wrong to verify to the best of your ability.  This may include your own review of the current literature regarding your illness to see if the suggested treatment protocols agree with current research.  Most doctors will hate you for this.

Living in a world without back pain is wonderful.     Take responsibility for your health.  – Pandemic Survivor

Note: There was an episode of House where the suggested illness was vitamin D deficiency.   My wife, the director of a large clinical lab is telling me that doctors are ordering serum vitamin D test on almost everything.  Maybe we are getting there.  There is hope and you will not have to suffer pain for 30 years like I did.

Vitamin D and the Press

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This is a real tough nut to crack.  When a truly amazing story breaks on health, it is like the news people do not want to touch it.   When I first became aware of all the chronic disease that vitamin D deficiency was responsible for I was a bit hesitant.  Even though I had significant healing of cartilage and bone, I could not believe the science I was reading about all the metabolic effects.  Just like everyone else we had been up and down the road of claims about various nutrients and their effectiveness.  The science is so far reaching that no one can separate their common beliefs from the reality that society has done itself a huge disservice in the last fifty years by not following where the science has lead.

News people can be lazy in chasing down the latest on a story.  And there is this thing about having to keep the institutions that are buying the majority of the ads happy.  Ben Franklin did not have this problem as the advertising world was almost none existent in his day and he made his income from the paper by selling the paper.

We have heard about the toxicity of vitamin D over the years and this in combination of the ‘fear of the sun’ has driven the health of America into the toilet.  Not only are we paying unheard of amounts of money to fund the science, we are not being shown what the science has discovered because the largest economic sector, health care, would move from 16-18 percent of the economy to less than 10% of the economy.  This would still be a large percentage of the economy but not the glory days when large houses and yachts could be purchased off the backs of sick people.

The toxicity issue is there but not nearly as drastic as it was made out to be because we were putting a substance in our bodies that was not natural to our bodies and screaming about toxicity – vitamin D2.  The medical profession has always claimed that D3 and D2 are equal and they are not.  I have reported at length on this toxicity in the past and how much more D3 is effective than D2 and will not bore you with it now.

The experts are hesitant to move very fast because no one is willing to take the responsibility of bringing the largest segment of the economy down.  This really seems odd because by not moving they are taking responsibility for the sick and dying from vitamin D deficiency.  So which is the largest crime; theft by taking people’s jobs away or murder by withholding information about what causes chronic disease?  I am allowed to use language like this because I was personally tortured for 25 years because no one who had understanding of the science would come forward.  I had to discover it on my own by reading the science and acting.  My doctor, bless his heart, was telling me that I was going to damage myself and now he takes 8,000 IU’s of D3 per day.

And the press, well we have at least one paper that has got it right and that is the Financial Times.  I had a previous post on this – Major Newspaper Gets It This was a real surprise to me to see this article.  The rest of the world’s press have been playing it real safe and the Financial Times just comes right out and says vitamin D is not going mainstream because governments do not know what to do about the economic impact.

The Financial Times is based in London, England a country whose economic segment for health is already half of America’s segment.  So maybe they are just trying to get the New York Times and Wall Street Journal in the same economic neighborhood in which they live.  Our ‘sick care’ is about $8,000 per capita and in the UK it is about $4,000 per capita.  So let’s see:  $4000 x 300,000,000 people in the US is 1.2 trillion dollars.  Now that will buy a lot of houses and yachts for news corporation owners, medical insurance managers, pharmaceutical CEO’s, hospital directors, politicians filling their freezers with money, and doctors doing unnecessary procedures.  Is there a grand conspiracy or is our trusted professionals just ignoring the facts for profit otherwise known as murder.

The thing that should have got your attention was that the UK’s segment for health care is half of America’s and their sick rate is about the same.  The US has created a huge sick economy out of medical insurance so that our politicians can continue to fill their freezers with money.  If the US got the insurance thing right and had a healthy population from better nutrition, the segment could move from $8,000 per capita to $3,000 per capita freeing up funds to stimulate our economy in other segments.

Is there at least one good investigative reported left that is willing to tell the truth and not some theory of relative speculation?  We know there are no politicians left with morals.

Physically surviving, emotionally distraught.  – Pandemic Survivor

Back Pain and the Beginning of Hope

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There it was late one spring afternoon and the pain was unbearable.  It was as if I had been locked in an iron maiden torture device with the common intent of that device.  Pain banged like ping bong balls from one end of my spine to the other with sharp daggers of new response as one pain followed another.  With so many pain meds in my system that I was having difficulty remaining conscious I was still on the verge of shock from the pain.

Mixed with that was the emotional pain as my friends and family had deserted me as no one could stand to be around a person with that much constant pain. It reminded me of Psalm 38 NIV from Biblegateway.com where David was crying out to God about a similar situation.

6 I am bowed down and brought very low;
all day long I go about mourning.

7 My back is filled with searing pain;
there is no health in my body.

8 I am feeble and utterly crushed;
I groan in anguish of heart.

9 All my longings lie open before you, O Lord;
my sighing is not hidden from you.

10 My heart pounds, my strength fails me;
even the light has gone from my eyes.

11 My friends and companions avoid me because of my wounds;
my neighbors stay far away.

It was 2004 and as I know now the spring is the worst time of year because my vitamin D level was the lowest.  It had been a year since my last failed back surgery.  In this moment I asked that something be given to me so that I could overcome the pain of that afternoon.  I remembered the similarity of the numbers that I had researched for a friend where central air conditioning in homes in the US seemed to follow the obesity rates.  I focused my mind on trying to determine a correlation.  Going to the department of energy website and to the CDC I found these numbers.

Data:

  • Year 1980 1984 1987 1990 1993 1997 2001
  • % Obesity 15.1 18.2 20.6 23.3 25.2 28.4 31.5
  • % Central Air 27 30 34 39 44 47 55

When comparing the two sets of data with least squares it looks like this:

There it was better than a 99% correlation.  That calmed my mind with distraction and was fascinating at the same time.  It must be that fat people got hot and put in more air conditioning accordingly.  Of course at that time I could find nothing on the web about vitamin D deficiency and obesity and that ‘ah hah’ moment came later when reading a story on rickets and inner city kids.  It took me until November of 2004 to come to the understanding that the lack of exposure to sun was the issue.   See My Story.

I know that pain is harmful and destructive in ways that are not describable.  When I suggest that my pain was far above the pain of a ruptured appendix, no one seems to understand because even child birth pains cannot describe the constant intrusion of the neural system being in exceptional upset.  The ruptured appendix when I was nineteen now comes in at a modest 4 on my pain scale of 0 – 10.  My spine being 70% compressed by a central rupture at L4-L5 with sleep disturbance from sleep apnea and my friends deserting me is a 10.  Just writing this story for you brings up memories that are almost unbearable, but I know that this is important for your understanding and I will suffer this grief for you.

For you who may be reading this story because of pain and you have stumbled here in the hope of finding some relief, know that it is possible for your body to heal and for you to feel great again.  Please read here on what I did to overcome this pain without more surgery.  Back Pain

I know the destructiveness of pain and without God showing me where to find relief I would most likely be dead at this point.  My mission now is to get the understanding of vitamin D into the mainstream understanding of health.  Or at least to help encourage the ones that have given up hope.

Your mission if you choose to accept it is to spend enough time in the sun for health and to get your serum vitamin D level to one of health.  – Pandemic Survivor

Living in Community

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We have just past the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere.  That means the days have stopped getting shorter and started getting longer.  In all cultures in the higher latitudes we find a time of celebration centered on this increase in light.  This increase in light has always been associated with an increase in ‘life’.  The start of winter or the beginning of a necessary fast because of the sparseness of the necessities to sustain life just calls for a coming together of members of the community to talk of hope and comfort in being together and knowing that a change has occurred that is a renewal of life.   Christians adopted this time of renewal to also celebrate a time of hope so as to not fall into worship of things other than God and so that Christians could come together with the larger community in celebration of the renewal of life.

May joy and happiness totally consume your life during this period of renewal and this celebration with family and friends.  We pray for the renewal of our institutions in empathy toward the individuals that they serve.

Joy, hope, peace and love calls for renewal
As we come together in community
Seeking the significance and comfort of others
In belief that the community is our best hope

No one wants to suffer the long hard periods
Of the beginning of the renewal in life alone
When our worst fear calls terror to heart
That the long periods of pain will continue

While huddled in community our fears dissolve
And slowly each day is longer and brighter
As the sun begins to bring this renewal of life
To all beings as joy and hope lock in syzygy

Original Verse by Mark Pegram

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.”  – John 1:3-5 NIV

Merry Christmas!  – Pandemic Survivor

Death Panels in US Health Care

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During the present conversation on Health Care Reform legislation, there has been a lot of discussion about death panels.  It seems that proponents of the present legislation have claimed that these panels are just scare tactics by those that do not want the legislation to pass.  Here is an article from the New York Times discussing this issue. False ‘Death Panel’ has some Familiar Roots. Could it be that the real death panels are those groups that are appointed specifically as ‘non-biased’ for reporting to HHS, NIH, FDA, Department of Defense, and other government sponsoring bodies?  The NY Times article claims “There is nothing in any of the legislative proposals that would call for the creation of death panels or any other governmental body that would cut off care for the critically ill as a cost-cutting measure.”

A committee or Food and Nutrition Board was appointed in September, 2008 to discuss and report on Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin D and Calcium.  This committee is an arm of the Institute of Medicine and a sub-division of the National Academy of Sciences.  The NAS was formed specifically to keep political views from entering into scientific decisions.  From the Project Information for this FNB:  “The project is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration, Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion), U.S. Department of Agriculture (Center for Nutrition Policy and Promotion, Agricultural Research Service), U.S. Department of Defense (Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center), and Health Canada.”

Dr. John Cannell, Vitamin D Council, was upset at the appointment of the members of this committee because he felt that the committee was biased because there was no one on the committee that been a leader in the ‘Vitamin D Revolution’.  That was reported in his January 21, 2009 newsletter.  Here is a feel for his upset from that newsletter:  “Are these statements the reason the IOM excluded these vitamin D experts?  Perhaps the IOM dislikes criticism more than it loves candor? When the new FNB vitamin D recommendations come out next summer, will those recommendations continue to “offend the most basic principles of pharmacology and toxicology?”  If any member of the new board disagrees with the consensus of the board, will that scientist be allowed to produce a minority opinion without risking the loss of research grants in the future? “  I agree somewhat with John’s statements but it is also necessary not to have biased viewpoints on the committee which will make their report stronger evidence of the effects of vitamin D on the human body.  This from their Conflicts of Interest Policy: “Finally, it is essential that the work of committees that are used by the institution in the development of reports not be compromised by issues of bias and lack of objectivity.”

They certainly would not want me on the committee having been pulled from the ‘jaws of death’ by vitamin D.  I am exceptionally and without shame biased!!  Dr. Cannell’s point is that there is no money to be made in the sale of vitamin D because it is one of the least expensive nutritional supplements on the market and it is free from sun exposure. Why not have some of the scientists on the committee that are the closest to the research?  After all, these researchers have already demonstrated their character and their lack of bias by risking their careers in objecting to current practices.  There are people in this esteemed list of doctors and scientist appointed to the committee that have done research on vitamin D so there is a body of knowledge that is inherent in this committee.  So the question – is there any bias on this committee?  List of committee members and a brief bio of their work.

When you look at bias you are always concerned about a scientist taking a strong viewpoint that could undermine his objectivity to the decision making process.  Also you do not want a scientist that will gain materially from the decision that is being made.  This last statement excludes everyone on the board.  Not only does everyone on the board stand to not profit from their decision, the decision could reduce funding to their research projects by as much as half of everything they do.  When it becomes knowledge that vitamin D is an essential hormone necessary to sustain life the amount of death from illness by chronic disease will be reduced by half and the medical industry including medical research will shrink accordingly.

This Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine on Dietary Reference Intakes for Vitamin D and Calcium, an arm of the National Academy of Sciences, is by definition a death panel.  Through their decisions they stand to significantly impact the centers of commerce and the flow of money throughout the world by improving the health of the world or holding to status quo.  Financial Times has already discussed the fact that the reason the vitamin D science has not come forward is because of the money. Read this article:  Why Governments are Selling Vitamin D Short – Sam Apple – published October 23, 2009 Financial Times:  and my comments from my post ‘A Major Newspaper Gets It”

Dr. Cannell you are absolutely correct about the possibility of bias and so the question is will the members of this committee recuse themselves?  Every member of this committee stands to lose. It is now a matter of character if the correct decisions are made.  Dr. A. Catherine Ross, Chairman of this FNB, has the lives of millions of people in the world in her hands as well as the weight of the economic future of the world.  The decisions of this committee will be the most powerful influence on health and economics that have been made in the history of the world since the death camps and declaration of war during World War II.  I do not envy this appointment.  My prayers are for you Dr. Ross and the committee.

Life, sometimes, is not easy in the sun.   – Pandemic Survivor

Millions Needlessly Die of Vitamin D3 Deficiency

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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

Individual Health Versus Institutional Health

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I certainly hope that you enjoyed my satirical post on the president declaring a national emergency for vitamin D deficiency.  Of course this is what needs to happen, whether it will ever happen or not is another question.  Because a sudden improvement in health would so drastically reshape the economy of the world maybe moving carefully is prudent.  On the other hand, living with disease that causes pain and suffering is sad when there very well could be a simple solution.

It most likely would take longer for the insurance companies to start to fail than what I suggested in the satire.  At first, it is most likely that they would see a significant windfall profit as the cost of reduced disease states shrinks.  Then when state insurance and federal insurance controls kicked in on profitability then jobs would start to be lost.  But you know,  I believe these jobs should never have been created in the first place if we had been following the science of medicine instead of the greed of institutions.

Specialization in institutions leads to efficiency in performing task of the corporate body but leads to evil when the overall moral compass fails.  In the US the moral compass of the nation is contained in the leadership of the three branches of government.  When that compass is lost then the country as a whole will start to fail.  We typically have leadership at the top that is trained in how to handle money and to be the most profitable in the course of action without greater consideration for the ethics of the action.

When the science of vitamin D was coming forward in the 1930’s into the late 1970’s was the time for our moral compass to kick in with compassion for the suffering of the ill.  However, what kicked in was the greed of institutions to be wealthy.  As Dr. John Cannell, Vitamin D Council, says the ‘science was ignored’.  The building of large profitable institutions based on a large population of sick people was not ignored.  Is there one corporate medical body that can stay profitable on a shrinking population of disease?  Leaders of our corporations will tell you that growth is the only way to sustain a company in today’s modern paradigm of business.  Imagine a 25 to 50 percent reduction in the largest sector of our economy.

The moral compass of our country is held in the body politic by the people and not by any branch of government.  Our politicians have become too aglow with being reelected to make decisions that best fit the people because the money is from profitability of institutions which in turn give it to politicians for reelection.  However, it is the responsibility of the president when all else fails to act to stem the suffering of the people.  This responsibility has been given to the Secretary of Health and Human Services.  When we find principles stated like Secretary Leavitt’s of the Bush White House – ‘markets before mandates’ more important than to ‘value life’ then suffering of the population is the result.

In any case we the people sharing our stories of overcoming disease without the institutions can make a significant reduction in suffering.  Send me your stories of recovering from illness from vitamin D and we will help others toward the understanding of health from the sun.

Because vitamin D is so cheap and so clearly reduces all-cause mortality, I can say this with great certainty: Vitamin D represents the single most cost-effective medical intervention in the United States. ~ Dr. Greg Plotnikoff, Medical Director, Penny George Institute for Health and Healing, Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis.

Dr. John Cannell’s point of keeping your serum vitamin D, 25(OH)D, level above 50 ng/ml when it causes no harm and has the possibility of making you well is where the medical profession should be.  A normal range has long been from 20 ng/ml to 100 ng/ml and now all that is being suggested is that the lower end of the range be increased to prevent disease and death.  But in the backs of the minds of the leaders of our institutions is the ‘health’ of the largest sector in our economy.

Be well and healthy and let the sun shine on you.       – Pandemic Survivor