vitamin C vials
"Vitamin C protects against coronavirus." The Orthomolecular Medicine News Service first said so on January 26. The opening sentence of that release was and remains politically incorrect: "The coronavirus pandemic can be dramatically slowed, or stopped, with the immediate widespread use of high doses of vitamin C." The next two sentences are virtually never quoted. "Physicians have demonstrated the powerful antiviral action of vitamin C for decades. There has been a lack of media coverage of this effective and successful approach against viruses in general, and coronavirus in particular."

Shortly after this release, CDC and WHO put up statements at their respective websites declaring that vitamin C was useless against COVID-19. Without even checking sources, USA Today and other newspapers declared it "fake news" and "false information." YouTube deleted videos of licensed physicians supporting therapeutic or even preventive use of vitamin C. Facebook literally blocked and banned this quote from one physician with over 30 years' experience treating viral illnesses:
"I have not seen any flu yet that was not cured or markedly ameliorated by massive doses of vitamin C."
(Robert F. Cathcart, MD)
But something else, something big, also happened. OMNS Chinese edition editor Richard Cheng, MD, PhD, was already in place in China. He was first to report in on several Chinese doctors' initial successes using intravenous vitamin C against COVID. This was followed by OMNS publishing quotes from seminars and interviews with these doctors. Videos of these physicians have been promptly and repeatedly removed by YouTube for "violating their community standards."

In spite of this, with no help from the network news, or the NIH, or the CDC, and certainly not from WHO, the public nevertheless drew a vital conclusion: if high dose intravenous vitamin C is useful for treating COVID-19 in hospitalized, ICU patients, then moderate oral doses of vitamin C will likely be a good preventive. Almost immediately, vitamin C sold out worldwide. Shelves were empty. Even the largest retailers were backordered for weeks. Some still are.

Practically the whole world is now taking vitamin C. I think this is the real reason why COVID-19 will not become COVID-20. Or 21.

Andrew W. Saul founded the peer-reviewed Orthomolecular Medicine News Service in 2004 at the request of Abram Hoffer, MD, PhD, and Hugh D. Riordan, MD. Saul, Dr. Hoffer's coauthor for four books, has written, coauthored, or edited twenty-one more. He has no financial connection whatsoever with the supplement industry.