Good news for the unvaccinated

November 25, 2021

What is happening in the Danish society?
Denmark is a wonderful country! One must look for a long time for a more tolerant, incorruptible and trusting people!
So far, most Danes can probably agree.

Therefore, we can not help but ask: What is happening in our country right now?
Are we talking about an A-team and a B-team? The vaccinated and the UN-vaccinated? Yes, according to the Danish Prime Minister, we are!
It is disrespectful, and we must go far back in history to see such state-run disgrace of a minority.
And is it at all true that the unvaccinated are a danger and “live life dangerously”? Let’s look at the facts.

We can ourselves
Every day in our lives where we are symptom-free (healthy), it is not due to the absence of viruses or bacteria, but to the presence of an active, balanced immune system that does exactly what it is designed for.
– And which no vaccine can replace.

When health professionalism became politics
Lack of knowledge and misinformation of the population has led to an unjustified fear of viruses and an equally unjustified one-sided focus on vaccines. But worse still, it has created a disunion in the population.

That politicians, agencies, government officials, health professionals, and the general public have been convinced that infection is the same as disease is spin and politics and not health science.

A high infection rate does not matter if there are no patients. When 1,000 persons are infected without anyone dying, it means that 1,000 persons gain natural, strong immunity.
So when the Danish National Board of Health now reduces the duration of natural immunity from 12 to 6 months in the corona passport, then that policy is contrary to science.

If we observe the total mortality in Denmark over the past 20 years, we can state that mortality had not increased in 2020, when we had an epidemic at full strength, but no vaccines.
Covid-19 has thus not increased mortality in Denmark.

Furthermore, we can state that mortality has not decreased in 2021 (January to October), where we have vaccinated 80% of the population and 90% of the risk groups.
The vaccines have thus not reduced mortality in Denmark.

Even the number of infections today is much higher than it was the same day a year ago, although fewer are being tested now.
Thus, the vaccines have not reduced the number of infections either.

Why do some people’s immune system fail?
A groundbreaking study from the University of Copenhagen (KU) showed that vitamin D is necessary for our ability to survive infections in the normal way. The findings of the study were evaluated by the University of Copenhagen and determined to be so important that “a number of immunology books must be rewritten“.

Vitamin D in sufficient amounts is crucial for activating the immune system in infections, and “switching it off” again afterwards, so that the immune response is normalized.
The study explains the mechanism that has been sought in 50-60 years of vitamin D research.
The informed reader of the previous newsletters is well aware that in the absence of certain micronutrients, the immune system will fail.

Such a deficiency can not be remedied by simply taking the doses that are currently recommended here in Denmark. These are often too low because they do not take into account poor diet, improper preparation of food, stress, smoking, medication, etc., which leads to a greater need for these nutrients.
With a healthy lifestyle and a sufficient intake of the vitamins and minerals that are crucial for the immune system to function as it should, virtually no virus will be generally dangerous to the population in countries with Danish living standards.

Is vaccine our only salvation?
As the vaccine does not prevent infection or transmission, but should only inhibit serious illness in the vaccinated person, it is inconceivable that one wants to vaccinate healthy children who do not risk serious illness. The risk of vaccine side effects and death will here be far greater than the risk of the disease that the vaccine should protect against. This is contrary to The Hippocratic Oath.

Vaccines and only vaccines have been heavily targeted. Not a word about natural, effective, inexpensive and side-effect-free prevention and treatment.
It is like a three-legged stool, where the two legs have been removed, namely prevention and treatment.
Such a one-legged stool will never be able to stand alone.

It therefore surprises us that information about the things that can actually prevent and treat serious illness is not disseminated to the population through the official channels, but on the contrary is censored in a fog of misinformation.

We find it responsibility incurring not to inform about this.

Natural immunity – our main defense
We hear again and again the same experts on TV and in other media repeating that our immunity decreases at the same rate as the amount of antibodies in the blood, both after vaccination and after natural immunity after a viral infection. But this is wrong. A scientifically incorrect assumption. And a misunderstanding. With natural immunity, the amount of antibodies decreases naturally, after a viral infection. It should actually drop.

The wise body
The body is energy efficient and does not use energy and space to maintain high levels of antibodies to a virus it has just fought or the thousands of virus types we are constantly exposed to.
Once the virus has been defeated, the body turns down the flame so that it can again use energy on other processes. And it can do so calmly, because with the infection the natural, strong and often lifelong immunity is built up.
If, after battling the infection, the body continues to maintain high levels of antibodies in the blood for months and years, it is equivalent to a boxer who has just knocked out his opponent in the boxing ring continuing to walk with the parades up for months. That does not make sense.

The important memory cells
In the event of a viral infection, there is an activation of e.g. memory cells, which are coded to be able to recognize the virus they have just been in contact with, so that they can reactivate antibodies again very quickly at later encounters with the virus.

Unlike vaccine immunity, natural immunity is longer lasting, more broad-spectrum and thus more effective against mutations.

The continuous updating of the cells’ memory by natural immunity after infection makes the immune system stronger after each update. This ongoing update does not occur to the same extent with vaccine immunity, where one instead has to revaccinate.

This has just been demonstrated in a new study from August 2021 from Rockefeller University that specifically examines Pfizer’s and Moderna’s mRNA vaccines against natural immunity and has been confirmed by previous studies.

Updated memory cells can quickly activate an immune response adapted to the inevitable re-infections.
The reaction is rapid and the virus is therefore killed before it has time to multiply in an amount that triggers disease symptoms.
This means that we do not detect these recurrent re-infections. In other words, we are symptom-free and healthy, even though from time to time there is a disease virus in the body, and if we are tested for re-infection, it will be possible to measure the virus, and we are thus “infected”, ie. have a positive test. But we are neither sick nor particularly contagious.
Infection rates as a disease indicator are therefore a wrong strategy.

If there was a pandemic with a generally dangerous disease with high mortality (such as Ebola), and there was an effective and proven safe vaccine, then we would all be vaccinated, right?
But something lags. For none of these things are the case.

And it does not increase confidence in authorities, experts and the health system that there can be no calm, open and uncensored debate on these things.

Take care of yourself and others.

Kim Varming, Chief Physician and Clinical Immunologist,
Claus Hancke,
Specialist in General Medicine and
Michael Schultz,
Physiotherapist and Business Lawyer

Note: This post has in a slightly different form been published as a column in media in the northern part of Jutland 15/11.

Refs:

https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/viden/kroppen/klar-paa-et-tredje-stik-derfor-kan-du-forvente-blive-vaccineret-igen
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/15/natural-immunity-vaccine-mandate/
https://sundhedspolitisktidsskrift.dk/nyheder/3702-coronabloggen-reinfektion-med-covid-19-hvad-ved-vi.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/15/natural-immunity-vaccine-mandate/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34100029/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33296701/
https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)31008-4.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867420310084%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34100029/
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.29.454333v1
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.08.24.21262415v1
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8253687/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33296701/
https://nyheder.tv2.dk/samfund/2021-05-18-vaccine-og-infektion-giver-immunitet-i-otte-maaneder-oplyser-styrelse
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.07.29.454333v2
og https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34619745/
https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/30919-natural-infection-versus-vaccination-differences-in-covid-antibody-responses-emerge/
https://nyheder.tv2.dk/2020-07-13-antistoffer-mod-coronavirus-kan-vaere-vaek-allerede-efter-faa-maaneder-viser-nyt-studie
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7247032/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33298562/
https://www.nature.com/articles/ni.1851
https://nyheder.ku.dk/alle_nyheder/2010/2010.3/dvitamin/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3775232/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/09/15/natural-immunity-vaccine-mandate/
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3631261
https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)31008-4.pdf?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867420310084%3Fshowall%3Dtrue
https://www.ema.europa.eu/en/medicines/human/EPAR/comirnaty
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32599103/

Vaccine, treatment, prevention and censorship

February 4, 2021

Since the turn of the year, the big mantra on the part of the Danish government has been vaccines, vaccines, vaccines, and much of the news flow has revolved around approval, safety, supplies and groups of people that needed to be vaccinated. In addition, vaccine passports are now being introduced, which will be necessary if you want to go to the movies, to Mallorca, to concerts or to festivals. – That is coercion.

Immunological disability

Moreover, one mutation after another of the Covid-19 virus is being discovered, and currently it is the Brazilian P1 version that is lurking on the horizon. There are hundreds of thousands of virus types, and in addition, mutations of these.
RNA viruses are particularly prone to mutating, and the more the mutation changes the protein structures of viruses, the less immunity from previous infections or vaccines there will be. Well, then you have to make a new vaccine or adjust the old one, we hear in the media…. – And then we have to be vaccinated again.
How many immunizations must we have?
If the survival of mankind is made dependent upon new vaccines having to be made all the time, every time a virus mutates enough, will we then after 2-3 generations risk that increasing immunological disability occurs?
This is, of course, a hypothesis, but also a horror scenario where simple epidemics could require many deaths.
This race between viruses and vaccines is meaningless. It is a race we will never win.
Viruses will always be in the lead, and they will never be eradicated.
The only thing that is capable of lightning-fast adaptation and can keep up is a well-functioning immune system.
The question is whether we will ever get rid of the SARS-Cov-2 virus, or whether it will simply join the ranks of other corona, rhino and many other types of virus that exist among us and that appear from time to time with the symptoms of a cold or flu.

Treatment

For years, orthodox medicine has researched the possibilities for treating colds and flu without much success. A few substances have been found such as oseltamivir (Tamiflu), which 20 years ago was thought to work against influenza, but where the results are highly questionable. And with such a product with many side effects, it is a mystery that it is still registered for the treatment of influenza here in Denmark. It is banned in Japan.
Another example is Remdesevir, which has been widely used against Covid-19 until WHO now has advised against it.(1)
Hospitalized patients are currently getting steroids to dampen down the exaggerated immunological response (cytokine storm) in Covid-19 disease. It makes good sense. In Danish hospitals, however, steroid treatment is still being combined with Remdesevir despite the WHO recommendation against its use. (1)
Far better results have been seen in orthomolecular medicine, where one uses substances already known by the body with minimal side effects.
The other day, for example, an RCT (randomized control study) was published from India using ozone therapy in conjunction with standard treatment versus standard treatment alone.(2) It is a small study with 60 patients, but the difference is massive and the authors conclude that ozone therapy is a safe and effective treatment for hospitalized covid-19 patients with mild and moderate disease.
A few months ago in the journal Science one could read an interesting article about a very solid research project by the Berger group at the Max Planck Bristol Center at the University of Bristol.(3)
Using “cryo-electron microscopy” they have mapped the spikes that make up the corona of the virus.
The spike protein is a so-called trimer (consisting of three proteins), and the authors have discovered a non-protein density in the SARS-CoV-2 S receptor binding position that has not been seen before.
In the binding pocket of the spike proteins was found a molecule that was examined by mass spectroscopy at the Max Planck Institute in Heidelberg and revealed something as simple as linoleic acid, which we know from the cheap corn oil or sunflower oil, but also in safflower oil.
Linoleic acid is an essential fatty acid. We cannot synthesize it ourselves, and so we must have it. -Just not too much, because it is an n-6 fatty acid, which in its synthesis pathway forms arachidonic acid and thus prostaglandin 2, which is pro-inflammatory. And that is not suitable. –
Especially not when we talk Covid-19, where the point is that we want to inhibit inflammation.
Therefore, it seems contradictory that linoleic acid nevertheless is not that crazy if you are faced with a Covid-19 disease. Actually the researchers showed that linoleic acid can inhibit virus replication by blocking the ACE-2 receptors, allowing the spike proteins to bind together by means of linoleic acid to a closed form that makes the virus non-infectious.
This is quite in line with the discovery that all severe Covid-19 patients had low levels of linoleic acid in their blood.
The research group is quite resigned to the inevitability of antiviral vaccination and mentions as an example that after 30 years of research into developing an HIV vaccine, we have ended up without a vaccine, but with a cocktail of antiviral small molecules that can keep the virus at bay.
The group is therefore now aiming to develop a small linoleic acid-like molecule that can be used in the treatment of Covid-19 disease. Again, an example of orthomolecular treatment.

Prevention and censorship

In the examples with ozone and linoleic acid, we got a few examples of orthomolecular treatment, as an option for covid-19 treatment.
But the orthomolecular methods are first and foremost supreme when we talk prevention.
In the recent many newsletters and in several interviews on radio and TV, as well as letters to the authorities, I have repeatedly pointed out the importance of ensuring that the immune system gets the nutrients it needs to function optimally, and the many scientific references to this can be found in the previous newsletters.
It is especially important that we get the blood content of vitamin D above 75 nmol/L (30 ng/ml), and preferably double that. Roughly estimated, a maximum of 10% of the Danish population is at this level.
That the blood content of vitamin D is only estimated and not factual data is because the regions oppose widespread testing of vitamin D because it costs money to test.
In a newsletter from University of Copenhagen 7/3 2010, Professor Carsten Geisler writes: “Vitamin D is absolutely crucial for the immune system”.
And further on, he states, the research group has discovered as something “completely new that vitamin D is crucial for the activation of the T cells, which play a central role in fighting particularly dangerous infections”.
Well, hello. Isn’t that just the knowledge we need when we have such widespread vitamin D deficiency?
This very important discovery is published in Nature (4), where the research group explains the activation of vitamin D by key T cells in the immune system. –In fact, exactly the cells that can fight the new virus mutations.
I came to mention this in an interview on a small TV station, which posted the interview on Youtube. From here, it was removed a few days later with the stamp “medical deception”. Almost the same day, the Danish National Board of Health went into the media with advice to the population about eating more vitamin D.
Section 77 of the Danish Constitution states: “Censorship and other preventive measures can never be reintroduced.”
This, of course, refers to state censorship. But Youtube, Google and Facebook are so massively widespread that they have something approaching monopoly-like conditions, and it is thought-provoking that here in Denmark we have a former prime minister to sit and administer such censorship.
When these tech giants get together in the medical-political complex, it costs lives.
This is best described in an editorial in the British Medical Journal from last year:(5)
“Politicization of science was enthusiastically introduced by some of history’s worst autocrats and dictators, but it has unfortunately become common in democracies. The medical-political complex tends to suppress science in order to adorn and enrich those in power.
And as the powerful become more successful, richer, and further intoxicated by power, the inconvenient truths of science are suppressed.
When good science is suppressed, people die”.
Therefore, the Vitality Council finds it necessary to spread the knowledge of the science that the population must not see.

Take care of yourself and others.

Claus Hancke MD
Specialist in general medicine

References

  1. https://www.who.int/news-room/feature-stories/detail/who-recommends-against-the-use-of-remdesivir-in-covid-19-patients
  2. Shah M et al, 2021 Int Immunopharmacol. 2021 Feb;91:107301.
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7758022/
  3. Toelzer Christine, Gupta K et al. 2020, Free fatty acid binding pocket in the locked structure of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. Science 06 nov 2020;370(6517):725-30.
    https://science.sciencemag.org/content/370/6517/725
  4. Geisler C, Ødum N et al. 2010, Vitamin D controls T cell antigen receptor signaling and activation of human T cells. Nature Immunology 2010;11:344-349.
    https://www.nature.com/articles/ni.1851
  5. BMJ 2020;371:m4425
    https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4425

Neglected opportunities

January 15, 2021

“The world is groping blindly for defences against the new virus variants” – according to a headline in the Danish newspaper Berlingske January 12th. The article then deals with gene sequencing and rapid diagnostics for infection control. But it is clear that panic spreads every time a new variant appears.

The fumbling in the dark began with clusters 1-5 found in Danish mink, which led to politician panic and the most drastic coercive intervention so far against any business in Denmark and the total closure of the region Vendsyssel.

The next time the panic screw was increased is now that the English variant B 1.1.7 is spreading. It is not more dangerous, but more contagious.

When the panic and anxiety from this variant begin to subside, then it’s time to introduce the South African variant and gravely tell us that this variant can now hit children, and then shut the country down. It is so deeply predictable that we absolutely must be pressed down into a state of chronic anxiety so that we conform to what is expected, and all of us line up for vaccination.

However, it is a good thing that the vaccines have arrived. The first vaccine was received by the media and politicians like a Messiah, and it was very nearly close to rose petals being sprinkled on the road in front of the trucks.

It is excellent that the health authorities quickly have launched vaccinating the elderly and seriously ill at risk. So far so good.

But my goodness, how they could have done so much good in the 10 months that have passed if they had listened to science.

When you consider that in order to shop in the supermarket Netto you have to look like a bank robber and wear a face mask whose effect is extremely poorly documented; -then it is striking that for months the authorities have turned a blind eye to well-documented opportunities that could have saved many lives and much suffering.

A study recently published in the Lancet (1) reviewed 89,000 hospitalizations with Covid-19 in March-April 2020 and Influenza Dec-Jan 2017-18.

It was found that Covid-19 caused significantly longer length of stay and greater mortality than the flu and it was concluded that in the future every effort should be made to prevent and vaccinate as well as find methods for treating Covid-19.

The Vital Council can only agree on this 3-string strategy: prevent, vaccinate, find ways to treat.

Unfortunately, this is not the strategy the government has chosen. Instead, they have chosen to put all their eggs in one basket.
Ever since the start of the pandemic, there has been hope and talk about the upcoming vaccine.
The authorities have been going all in, bone-hard, on the vaccine and only the vaccine and have not even wanted to squint at the other options in the three-stringed strategy mentioned above.

You can therefore understand the panic of the politicians until they were reassured that the mink variant was probably also sensitive to the upcoming vaccine. The same has now happened with B 1.1.7 from England, while we are still unsure of the South African variant.
That is to say the vaccines may in the future have difficulty keeping up with the constant changes in the highly mutated RNA virus, and one day they will fall short.

Yet all measures other than vaccines have been swept off the table despite massive documentation.
It is as if the authorities have overlooked that we humans actually have an immune system that is itself capable of adapting a new virus mutant.
Unlike a vaccine, a well-functioning immune system will be able to keep up every time a virus mutates.

Of course, it is necessary for the immune system to function optimally, and it ris necessary that we humans get a diet with the nutrients that the immune system needs.

This is so obvious that it hurts to say over and over again (see 5 previous newsletters from May 2020):
Decades of scientific evidence show that deficiency of especially vitamins A, C, D and K as well as deficiency of selenium, magnesium and zinc weakens the immune response and increases the incidence of infections, especially lung diseases. (2-10)

Specifically, in recent years there has been extensive writing about vitamin D, and the University of Copenhagen wrote almost prophetically on March 7, 2020, on its website in the News section: “Vitamin D is absolutely crucial for the immune system.”

Since then, several studies have been performed on vitamin D against Covid-19, which show significantly less infectivity, shorter hospital stays, milder illness, and lower mortality. (11-17) This documentation is further strengthened by the fact that the groups that are low in Vitamin D are those most affected by Covid-19, especially overweight persons, nursing home residents, immigrants, the chronically ill, and the elderly.

Traditionally, here in Denmark we have considered it sufficient, as long as the serum vitamin D (25-hydroxyvitamin D) level was 50 nmol/L (20 ng/ml) or more. This is not enough. All studies point to the need to have at least 75 nmol/L (30 ng/ml) in the blood and preferably 150 nmol/L (60 ng/ml.)
Far less than half of the Danish population are within these figures.
You cannot reach this preferred level, even if you then eat fatty fish every single day; you have to take supplements.
In turn, there is a major health benefit in eliminating the population’s deficiency of vitamin D. -Not only in the face of several of the major lifestyle diseases, but also of Covid-19.

Research shows, as mentioned, that sufficient vitamin D will shorten the duration of the disease, avoid hospitalizations, and reduce mortality from covid-19 disease. Those who become ill will simply have a mild course of the disease but will still build up immunological defenses until the next time they encounter it. If you also make sure that there is no shortage of the other above-mentioned vitamins and minerals, then the disease picture will look completely different in this country, and it could put a damper on the all-consuming anxiety and worry in the population.

Note: There is no talk of these vitamins and minerals being used to “treat” anything. They are used to correct deficiencies.

But it requires the authorities to think outside the box and show openness to the well-documented possibilities that exist here. Especially when these options are safe.
It is fine to think of collective infection control, but it does not preclude that one also thinks of the individual’s immune system and its well-being.

There has been an unfortunate streak of overlooked possibilities throughout the 10-month-long corona course. Opportunities that could have saved many lives and saved many sufferings.
-And these are, mind you, options that are significantly better documented than face masks.

Take care of yourself and others.

Claus Hancke MD
Specialist in general medicine

References

1. Comparison of the characteristics, morbidity, and mortality of COVID-19 and seasonal influenza: a nationwide, population-based retrospective cohort study. Piroth L et al, Dec.2020, Lancet. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-2600(20)30527-0

2. Arvinte C, Singh M, Marik PE (2020) Serum Levels of Vitamin C and Vitamin D in a Cohort of Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients of a North American Community Hospital Intensive Care Unit in May 2020: A Pilot Study. Med Drug Discov. 8:100064. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32964205

3. Hewison M. Vitamin D and innate and adaptive immunity. Vitam Horm, 2011; vol 86:23-62.

4. Gombart AF, Pierre A, Maggini S. A Review of Micronutrients and the Immune System-Working in Harmony to Reduce the Risk of Infection. Nutrients. 2020 Jan 16;12(1).

5. Schwalfenberg GK. A review of the critical role of vitamin D in the functioning of the immune system and the clinical implications of vitamin D deficiency. Mol Nutr Food Res. 2011 Jan;55(1):96-108.

6. Dancer RC, Parekh D, Lax S, D’Souza V, Zheng S1, Bassford CR, et al. Vitamin D deficiency contributes directly to the acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). Thorax. 2015 Jul;70(7):617-24.

7. Urashima M, Segawa T, Okazaki M, et al. Randomized trial of vitamin D supplementation to prevent seasonal influenza A in schoolchildren. Am J Clin Nutr. 2010 May;91(5):1255-60.

8. Sabetta JR, DePetrillo P, Cipriani RJ, Smardin J, Burns LA, Landry ML. Serum 25-hydroxyvitamin d and the incidence of acute viral respiratory tract infections in healthy adults. PLoS One. 2010 Jun 14;5(6):e11088.

9. Uwitonze AM, Razzaque MS. Role of Magnesium in Vitamin D Activation and Function. J Am Osteopath Assoc. 2018 Mar 1;118(3):181-189.

10. Dofferhoff A et al, Reduced Vitamin K Status as a Potentially Modifiable Risk Factor of Severe Coronavirus Disease 2019, Clin Infect Diseases, 2021, https://doi.org/10.1093/cid/ciaa1258

11. Kohlmeier M. Avoidance of vitamin D deficiency to slow the COVID-19 pandemic. BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health. 2020;3.

12. Grant WB, Lahore H, McDonnell SL, et al. Evidence that Vitamin D Supplementation Could Reduce Risk of Influenza and COVID-19 Infections and Deaths. Nutrients. 2020; 12(4):988.

13. McCartney DM, Byrne DG. Optimisation of Vitamin D Status for Enhanced Immuno-protection Against Covid-19. Ir Med J. 2020 Apr 3;113(4):58.

14. Aldridge RA, Lewer D, Beale S, et al. Seasonality and immunity to laboratory-confirmed seasonal coronaviruses (HCoV-NL63, HCoV-0C43, and HCoV-229E): results from the Flu Watch cohort study 30 March 2020.

15. Ilie PC, Stefanescu S, Smith L. The role of Vitamin D in the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019, infection and mortality. Aging Clinical and Experimental research (https://doi.org/10.1007/s40520-020-01570-8) Springer Switzerland. 2020 May 6.

16. McCullough PJ, Lehrer DS, Amend J. Daily oral dosing of vitamin D3 using 5000 TO 50,000 international units a day in long-term hospitalized patients: Insights from a seven year experience. J Steroid Biochem Mol Biol. 2019 May;189:228-239.

17. Kaufman H et al, SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates associated with circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels PLOS ONE, sept.17,2020

Huge victory for freedom of speech in America

May 5, 2011

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has suffered a stinging defeat in a lawsuit in Washington DC, where their tyrannical censorship of serious health claims have been found unconstitutional.

In the beginning was the word
“First Amendment to the United States Constitution” refers to freedom of expression as fundamental to the nation and is also the foundation of any civilized legal community today.

Without freedom of expression – no freedom
However, in civil services in many countries a tendency has crept in to promote their own political objectives by intimidation and over-management rather than under-management.

This is well known in Europe’s vast civil service, where no case is too small to rule from Brussels. And here in Denmark we know it as a tendency of the civil sevice to administer dietary supplements regulations in a far more restrictive way than it has ever been thought or spoken in the EU Food Supplements Directive, although this is much more restrictive than the equivalent in the U.S.
In other European countries like the Netherlands and England the same EU
rules are administered far more in consistent with people’s interests than is the case here in Denmark.

In the U.S. in 1996 the civil rights group “Citizens for Health” succeeded in implementing that a dietary supplement can only be banned if it is harmful.
Here in Denmark it will be prohibited if it is beneficial!

Lawsuit against FDA
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back to the “Alliance for Natural Health (ANH), and the organization sued the FDA in this matter in the District Court for the District of Columbia,” which recently ruled in the case.

The Court ruled that the FDA’s censorship of documented claims are contrary to the U.S. Constitution very first words about freedom of speech. The Court even allowed explicitly the following claims, which however was not about dietary supplements, but vitamins: “Vitamin C may reduce the risk of gastric cancer” and “Vitamin E may reduce the risk of bladder cancer”.

Denmark
Unfortunately we can´t expect Danish politicians in a foreseeable future to be awakened by a population who is surprised that there are health-promoting information, it may not get, even if it so desires.

One day, people will make politicians aware that this is contrary to the Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights in which one may not prevent people from information that they wish to receive.

This means that the authorities are on thin ice when they prohibit Internet sites that contain documented product information about diet or dietary supplements. The citizen performs however a independent active action when he or she click their way to a website; – thus accessing information on their own hand. But this is not allowed. It is not good for him to see how he can improve his health.

It must strike one with wonder, who might have an interest in restricting the population from such information.

A cry for freedom
Allow us here at Denmark’s Independence Day, May 5th to make below pious desire to promote general health in a free Denmark:
The Danish Vital Council believes that people should have free access to information about dietary supplements and free access to buy safe dietary supplement. This is the best guarantee to prevent accidents and to ensure that the consumer gets the best possible product to suit his needs.
This implies that:

1) The consumer must have free access to information
The Vitality Council believes that misinformation must be penalized.
Today we penalize information in Denmark. Not even pharmacies and doctors must be informed about the available scientific evidence concerning dietary supplements.
This should be changed so that consumers can get free access to accurate information.
2) The consumer must have free access to dietary supplements
The Vitality Council does not believe that it is in the public interest to have curtailed ones right to buy the dietary supplements, one may wish, when these are otherwise safe to consume.
The Vitality Council must therefore urge that no authority administratively hinder people’s access to dietary supplements whose safety can not be doubted.

By: Vitality Council

www.anh-usa.org/free-speech

ECJ Advocate General Says: The Food Supplement Directive Invalid under EU Law

April 5, 2005

The many millons of European food supplement users have a good reason to be happy today. After the health freedom alliance, The Alliance for Natural Health’s landmark challenge of the very contentious Food Supplement Directive (FSD) by the European Courts of Justice (ECJ), the ECJ Advocate General Geelhoed today has stated that the directive is invalid according to EU law.

This increases the chance for the many supplement users to maintain the possibility of taking supplements to take care of their health..

The resistance against the planned EU-directive has been growing for the last five years and the supplement users now see a possibility to win the case, which can be likened to the fight between David and Goliath.

The Advocate General in a statement released in Luxembourg today at 9:30 Continental time, concluded that:

-The Food Supplements Directive infringes the principle of proportionality – because
– basic principles of Community law, such as the requirements of legal protection, of legal certainty and of sound administration have not properly been taken into account.
– The Directive is therefore invalid under EU law.

The Advocate General’s pronouncement is not a ruling. That will come from the ECJ judges, later – in June. But typically, in the vast majority of cases, the Court Judgment follows the recommendations of the Advocate General with 80%.

If the Advocate General’s recommendations are adopted, in effect, the ban on (ca 270) vitamin and mineral forms not included on the EU’s ‘Positive list,’ due to come into effect on 1 August 2005, will be declared illegal to sell and impossible to buy. The opposition to the positive list concept of allowable nutrient forms finds it too narrow, too restrictive, and based on flawed science.

An example could also be that synthetically produced selenium could be allowed on the positive list, while the natural source found in e.g. Brazil nuts would not; synthetic forms of Vitamin E (often used in ‘adverse’ vitamin studies reported in the media) would be allowed, but the natural, most beneficial food forms would not.

Alternative practitioner Inge Lundberg-Hansen is happily welcoming the Advocate General statement, and says: “There is so much sickness around. We know that food supplements prevent and that they can save us many of the wide spread diseases such as asthma and allergies, and that people by the help of supplements can obtain more energy, a better health and mood, a better relationship to their family, work, and financial situation. We are many, who will be happy, if the ban of the Food Supplement Directive does not come into effect.”

Alternative practitioner and health shop assistant, Agathe Langhof, is of the opinion that the ban of the Food Supplement Directive will make people very angry, so she is also very happy to hear about today’s positive news. She says: “Much more people than the authorities are aware of are depending on their vitamins and minerals. Supplement users are no longer a minority, but rather amount to half of the population. And the Food Supplement Directive case has made the contrast between pharmaceutical medicine and food supplements more distinct, and they want to decide over their own health. But maybe we are not supposed to too healthy and old?”

The M.D. Claus Hancke, who is the chairman of the Vitality Council says: “The Advocate General’s recommendation is the first sign we see of a sound judgement in connection with the EU Supplement Directive and it is my heartfelt hope that the ECJ will follow the Advocate General’s recommendation.”

BY: Vitality Council / SOURCE: ANH PRESS RELEASE / 05-04-05

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For more information:
Alliance for Natural Health (ANH)

 

American Authorities Wish for Better Information and Reporting about Dietary Supplements

April 12, 2004

Since 1994 liberal legislation in the United States has secured the American population full access to safe dietary supplements. 2½ year ago FDA asked the Institute of Medicine (IoM) to investigate the extent of harmful effects of supplements. The FDA received this report from IoM last week.

The conclusion is, among other things, that there are very few safety data for the 29,000 different dietary supplements sold in the United States, and the concern seems to be that this market grows by 25% a year, and today amounts to about 18 billion. dollars annually.

When the IoM was asked to do a safety assessment of the market, it was because there was growing concern about one supplement in particular, namely “Ephedra”, which was sold as a popular slimming and energy aid. The effect is somewhat reminiscent of the Danish, now banned drug, Letigen.

Ephedra does not exist in Denmark, and if it did, it would have to be registered as medicine, just as Letigen was in its time.

The FDA has now banned Ephedra as a dietary supplement after it caused 155 deaths and 16,000 cases of side effects. By comparison, over-the-counter arthritis medications (NSAIDs) cause 16,000 deaths in the United States each year.

The IoM also found products with wide variation in content, and products, particularly Chinese herbal preparations, which were contaminated with heavy metals and medicines. In some of the Chinese supplements, the medicine was actually added to promote the effect.

The IoM therefore proposes a “whistleblower” system with a central registration of side effects, similar to the Danish Side Effects Board, which is a fine idea. However, the IoM also writes that many side effects could be avoided if the consumer was sufficiently well informed.

This is a memento to the Danish system, where the Danish Food and Drug Administration prohibits information to both consumers and retailers of dietary supplements. Yes, not even doctors and pharmacists must be taught even the most factual information regarding dietary supplements.

This should be changed so that we increase security for the Danish consumer.

By: Vitality Council

Reference:
Special report: A health fad that’s hard to swallow, New Scientist Special Report, 12. April 2004.