> Health and Disease

If we are serious about slaying the current Goliath "sickness industry," as opposed to the "health industry," we must arm ourselves with the truth about vitamin C.

Acknowledging vitamin C as a kingpin in the maintenance of health and treatment of disease would revolutionize medicine and undermine the economy of the existing medical-pharmaceutical cartel. Consider that 10 to 15 percent of the gross national product in western society is generated by the "sickness industry," while health problems continue to escalate at an exponential rate. It has become a self-perpetuating system, illustrated by a recent revelation in the Journal of the American Pharmaceutical Association that the overall cost of prescription drug-related side-effects now exceeds $177 billion annually. Frank R. Ernst of the College of Pharmacy at the University of Arizona, lead author of the report, indicated that the total annual morbidity and mortality costs of drug-induced side-effects far exceed the cost of the medications themselves, estimated to be $111 billion in 2000. Clearly, drug therapy is a futile excursion down a dead-end road.

Meanwhile the recent barrage of pseudo-scientific information about vitamin C, couched in "mays" and "mights," casts unwarranted aspersions on the safety of this nutrient. This is not coincidental. It’s a barometer of the perceived economic threat of vitamin C to pharmaceutical drug and vaccine interests. They know that this war must be waged in the court of public opinion.

It is also not coincidental that the pharmaceutical industry, through international bodies such as CODEX and the World Trade Organization, has focused first on vitamin C in its demands that the trade regulatory agencies reduce levels of over-the-counter supplements to insignificant levels. This will restrict the public’s access to large quantities except through controlled channels-all for our safety, of course. But what is the factual and suppressed clinical track record of vitamin C as a medical giant?

Early Clinical Research

First of all, intravenous and oral vitamin C in sufficiently high doses has unequivocally proven itself as a potent therapy in treating life-threatening infectious diseases, including polio, meningitis, all forms of infectious hepatitis and viral pneumonia. During the 1948 to 1952 polio epidemics, polio was not only curable but also cured easily with vitamin C within days!

Inge Hanle is a researcher, writer and health coach living in Vancouver, BC.

Source: alive #231, January 2002