It had to happen. Vitamin supplements are promoted for every malaise, and COVID-19 is the hottest business opportunity one can get. After the initial confusion with stem cells, nanotechnology, hormones, irradiation, and of course chloroquine and its derivative hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), the world came to its senses and recognised that only a prescription-free drug can cure COVID-19, otherwise where is the fun in that.
Since most COVID-19 victims are senior citizens, anti-aging companies arrived on the spot offering their proprietary supplements as COVID-19 prevention or even therapeutic medicine. While these fancy NAD+ and resveratrol supplements sound cool and futuristic (anti-aging!) it excludes other hard-working scammer and grifters who also wish to sell something but have patented nothing. The mineral supplement Zinc is literally dirt cheap and thus has a potential, since it was prophesied by quack-messiah Vovka “Zev” Zelenko of New York as important ingredient in the HCQ cure, but then again, you still need prescription drugs HCQ and the antibiotic azithromycin for Zinc to do its magic on COVID-19. A vitamin would be perfect, pensioners always need those, vitamins are always good, the word alone is reassuring. But which vitamin?
While scratching their bottoms about whether to go for Vitamin A, Vitamin B or Vitamin C (which cures all diseases anyway, cf Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling), with some Dutch merchants peddling Vitamin K, and surely Vitamin E is an option, too, the experts seem to have eventually arrived at Vitamin D. Why?
Well, as the coronavirus is raging uncontrolled in the United States because the President Donald Trump does not like bad news, most deaths happened among the Black and LatinX communities. Which is for sure not something making the Imperial Wizard Trump sad, but it made some biomedical scientists think. What if it is not the poverty, failed public health and blatant institutional racism which kills Black Americans in the pandemic, but something as simple and cheap as a lack of Vitamin D? In humans, the vitamin is naturally produced by exposure to sunlight, of which white skins takes up more than dark skin, so you see where this is going.
If you need scientific guidance, genetics professor Ewan Birney, director of EMBL-EBI in Edinburgh, can explain. Even a Time article highly critical of the Vitamin D theory of COVID-19 medicine wrote this:
“Indeed, many of the known risk factors for COVID-19—being Black or Hispanic; being elderly; having an underlying health condition; having a high body mass index—are also risk factors for vitamin-D deficiency.”
You see, since LatinX people are not perfectly pale white, they count as Vitamin-D deficient also, even if they live in the polar regions of California. In fact, US insurances might register being non-white as pre-existing medical condition (yes, I am aware they are eager to do exactly this as Trump dismantles Obama’s Affordable Care Act). Even The Lancet chimed in with some race medicine, via a comment article by British experts Adrian Martineau and Nita Forouhi endorsing Vitamin D supplements:
“The striking overlap between risk factors for severe COVID-19 and vitamin D deficiency, including obesity, older age, and Black or Asian ethnic origin, has led some researchers to hypothesise that vitamin D supplementation could hold promise as a preventive or therapeutic agent for COVID-19.”
Yes, we forgot Asians! Which explains such horrendous rates of COVID-19 in India, it must be the dark skin, and the lack of sun because unlike COVID-19 resistant British folks, those Indian farmers are always indoors…, ah crap, never mind. Since when are non-peer reviewed reality facts allowed to interfere with peer-reviewed science?
Vitamin D theory of COVID-19 is beautiful. It allows you to roll out any crypto-racist bunk and pretend it’s solid science, while peddling prescription-free supplements out the back. And in America, they love racial medicine, US hospital algorithms distribute (or rather deny) healthcare according to your skin colour, which bottom line is that Black people are more primitive than whites and therefore need less medical care.
Studies correlating COVID-19 to Vitamin D levels arrived quickly as the pandemic grew, and now gain traction as the HCQ hype declines. This paper from 3 September is probably the most headline-grabbing one, because it is from USA and appeared in JAMA. No wait, it’s the downstream Open Access cash-making outlet, JAMA Network Open, where it costs $3000 to publish.
David O. Meltzer, Thomas J. Best, Hui Zhang, Tamara Vokes, Vineet Arora, Julian Solway Association of Vitamin D Status and Other Clinical Characteristics With COVID-19 Test Results JAMA Network Open (2020) doi: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.19722
The authors accessed health records of COVID-19 patients and concluded that those who eventually caught the virus had low Vitamin D levels before:
“In this cohort study of 489 patients who had a vitamin D level measured in the year before COVID-19 testing, the relative risk of testing positive for COVID-19 was 1.77 times greater for patients with likely deficient vitamin D status compared with patients with likely sufficient vitamin D status, a difference that was statistically significant.”
Yes, the skin colour of patients was noted. None of the participants was actually Vitamin D deficient, so the authors set some threshold to assign them as “likely deficient”. They did notice that many had various pre-existing conditions like obesity, diabetes or cardiovascular problems, all COVID-19 risk factors. Low Vitamin D levels used to be see in the pre-COVID-19 times just an general biomarker of bad health, but now they became the main cause for getting infected with COVID-19 in the first place. Maybe confused by the fact that the majority of their analysed patients were not white, the authors conclude:
“Since African American and Hispanic populations in the US have both high rates of vitamin D deficiency and bear a disproportionate burden of morbidity and mortality from COVID-19,35,36 they may be particularly important populations to engage in studies of whether vitamin D can reduce the incidence and burden of COVID-19.“
What a lovely idea. Instead of providing public health and insurance available to everyone, why not telling Black and Hispanic Americans to pop some cheap Vitamin D pills.
As paediatrics professor Todd Alexander of University of Alberta was quoted in Folio, this Vitamin D deficiency and weakened immunity theory is not new, and has been used to explain diseases before:
“In the 1980s and ’90s, studies emerged that found a role for vitamin D in immune function. This, according to Alexander, led to a deluge of clinical studies finding reduced vitamin D levels in people affected by a host of diseases including asthma, cancer, diabetes and multiple sclerosis.”
Those cancer and asthma studies are now long forgotten, except by some unscrupulous vitamin peddlers. Correlation is not causation, but unfortunately not every scientist will agree with Alexander. Aside of rickets (which is a real Vitamin D deficiency syndrome) medical science has so far failed to convincingly connect any other disease to Vitamin D deficiency. Thanks to modern diet, there are anyway only few people with critically low Vitamin D levels in need of supplementation, while these unnecessary supplements do increase calcium uptake up to the formation of kidney stones. Doctors already noticed cases of Vitamin D poisoning in COVID-19 risk group patients who tried to “boost immunity”.
But then again, there is COVID-19 pandemic going on and their is no time for the scientific method.
The market for Vitamin D was already there, which is another beauty of the approach. Because everyone was convinced that showing yourself outside unprotected will immediately give you skin cancer, a notion supported by the extremely successful sunscreen industry (even though “melanoma rates in the U.S. have tripled since the 1970s, even as the use of sunscreen has increased“), there evolved a need to counteract the sun avoidance and the resulting potential Vitamin D deficiency with supplements. And now there is COVID-19 on, and what coincidence, Vitamin D helps also against that! The science has spoken.
Especially since the Vitamin D approach is such great business and also great fun. How about European COVID-19 death rates explained with dark-skinned Italians and lazy Spaniards doing their siesta in the shadows while the Nordic races toil in the fields, with their proud white faces turned towards the sun? Here is a paper from the (apparently COVID-19-resistant) UK on just that, its p-values for Vitamin D levels vs COVID-19 cases and mortality just happen to be exactly p=0.05, the magic value.
Petre Cristian Ilie, Simina Stefanescu & Lee Smith The role of vitamin D in the prevention of coronavirus disease 2019 infection and mortality Aging Clinical and Experimental Research (2020) doi: 10.1007/s40520-020-01570-8
“The Southern European countries have lower levels of vitamin D because of decreased exposure (prefer the shade in strong sun) [10] and also as skin pigmentation decreases vitamin D synthesis [11]. Northern part of Europe’s mean levels are better as a consequence of the consumption of cod liver oil and vitamin D supplements as well as fortification of milk and milk products (Finland) [6].”
Indeed, it must be all that Surströmming which Swedes eat, if anything it ensures social distancing. You might wonder who takes such a braindead and bigoted study seriously. Professor Helmut Schatz does, one of Germany’s top endocrinologists. Former governmental advisor Professor Hans-Konrad Biesalski of University of Hohenheim in Stuttgart analysed 30 studies, including the coronavirus effects on the “black race“, and urged Germans in June 2020 to take Vitamin D supplements for COVID-19. Elsewhere in Germany, the ultra-right xenophobes and rabid COVIDIOTS of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) demanded, also in June 2020 that the German Bundestag issues Vitamin D recommendation for COVID-19 prevention. Their proposal was rejected.
But also Italians and Spaniards themselves are jumping the bandwagon. Endocrinologist Luigi Gennari of University of Sienna presented his research to a closed circle at a conference, and nobody else, which should suffice. He concluded:
“Our data give strong observational support to previous suggestions that reduced vitamin D levels may favor the appearance of severe respiratory dysfunction and increase the mortality risk in patients affected with COVID-19“.
And in Spain, just look at this clinical trial from Cordoba, which used the Vitamin D analogue calcifediol. It cannot be more convincing:
Marta Entrenas Castillo, Luis Manuel Entrenas Costa, José Manuel Vaquero Barrios, Juan Francisco Alcalá Díaz, José López Miranda, Roger Bouillon, José Manuel Quesada Gomez “Effect of Calcifediol Treatment and best Available Therapy versus best Available Therapy on Intensive Care Unit Admission and Mortality Among Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19: A Pilot Randomized Clinical study” The Journal of steroid biochemistry and molecular biology (2020) doi: 10.1016/j.jsbmb.2020.105751
Only 2% of the 50 Vitamin D treated patients went to ICU as opposed to 50% of 26 patients who did not get Vitamin D!
Now, I really must commend the authors for their cleverness. The clinical trial started by dosing all COVID-19 patients with HCQ, but then that chloroquine cargo cult ship has sailed, or rather ran aground (its unhinged captain Didier Raoult crying sabotage as Marseille went from HCQ religion hotspot to COVID-19 hotspot). Hence the clever Cordoba investigators quickly switched to a new magic drug, Vitamin D, on top of HCQ! The journal they chose is not really specialising on clinical trials (aside of reviews), but it does specialise on Vitamin D research. Which was good enough to find the right reviewers. Who agreed with the authors that the many COVID-19 deaths Spain has experienced are due to Spaniards not getting enough sun in the winter.
Update 17.11.2020. The Castillo et al paper seems to be extremely authoritative, maybe because not many bothered to read it properly, but here is a nice takedown by DW Science. It quotes Martin Smollich, pharmacology professor at University of Lübeck in Germany, who noticed that the placebo control arm of the clinical trial included 19% of diabetics and 57% of hypertension sufferers, who are the highest COVID-19 risk group. The Vitamin D arm, where the survival rates were so much higher, happened to have merely 6% of diabetics and 24% of hypertension patients. But it passed peer review, so how dares Smollich to criticise it now!
Now, we arrive at some really serious money making. With these authors it cannot be any more obvious that they are all unashamed Vitamin D industry shills. Especially the last character on that paper.
Harvey W. Kaufman, Justin K. Niles, Martin H. Kroll, Caixia Bi, Michael F. Holick SARS-CoV-2 positivity rates associated with circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D levels PloS one (2020) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239252
The first four authors are employees of Quest Diagnostics, which tests your blood Vitamin D levels and then sells you Vitamin D supplements. The last author is the notorious Michael Holick, described by New Yorker as “The Child-Abuse Contrarian”, who issues bizarre medical diagnoses over the phone and whose custom-curated promotional Wikipedia profile was eventually vandalised by the reality. A Controversies section was added:
“Holick has been involved in several medical controversies. While at Boston University, he was asked to leave the Division of Dermatology because of his promoting the medical benefits of sun exposure. He accepted research funding for this work from a non-profit tanning bed company, considered by many to be an important potential bias. Barbara Gilchrest, then head of the department at Boston University, called Holick’s book “shlock science” and Holick “a poster boy for the tanning industry”.[50]
Holick received nearly $163,000 from 2013 to 2017 from pharmaceutical companies, according to Medicare’s Open Payments database, which tracks payments from drug and device manufacturers. The companies paying him included Sanofi-Aventis, which markets vitamin D supplements; Shire, which makes drugs for hormonal disorders that are given with vitamin D; Amgen, which makes an osteoporosis treatment; and Roche Diagnostics and Quidel Corp., which both make vitamin D tests.[51]
Holick has also been criticized by other physicians because of his testimony, defending accused child abusers by asserting that Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome is a cause of non-traumatic fractures in infancy (rather than abuse).[52] Experts in Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, as well as pediatricians specializing in traumatic bone injury, refute Holick’s position, which is completely unsubstantiated by the medical literature. In over 300 criminal cases Holick has never concluded that the child who suffered broken bones had been abused. In one case of a child who had suffered broken bones in which Holick defended the accused parent, the child later went on to suffer severe brain injury, for which the parent has been indicted.[53]
Since May 2017, Holick has been barred from evaluating or treating children by Boston Medical Center, which subsequently reported him to the Massachusetts Board of Registration in Medicine for “health care facility discipline.” [54]
In January 2018, Robert Marvin Ray, one of the parents whom Holick worked with over child abuse suspicions, was arrested and charged with child abuse.[50][55]
His promotion of Vitamin D has been called extreme, even speculating that the extinction of dinosaurs caused by a lack of it in reduced sunlight.[56]“
Would you as a journal editor accept anything from such a “scientist”? Well, PLOS One did. Maybe they were impressed by the sheer numbers of patients:
“This study used a retrospective, observational analysis of deidentified tests performed at a national clinical laboratory to determine if circulating 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) levels are associated with severe acute respiratory disease coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) positivity rates. Over 190,000 patients from all 50 states with SARS-CoV-2 results performed mid-March through mid-June, 2020 and matching 25(OH)D results from the preceding 12 months were included.“
Over One Hundred Ninety Thousands of patients, who can say no to such a gigantic clinical trial dataset, especially if it promises The Cure for COVID-19? If it reminds you of the Surgisphere scandal for which both The Lancet and NEJM fell arse over tit, well, this is how scholarly publishing works. The story counts, not the author’s or their dataset’s credibility.
Holick’s Boston University of course proudly issued a press release. But PLOS One might have second thoughts:
Having tweeted their concern on 24 September, the next day PLOS One published yet another paper by Holick about curing COVID-19 with Vitamin D. It first appeared as preprint on the Elsevier’s SSRN server, which is a much fancier preprint server than others because it is named “Preprints with THE LANCET“. Now in PLOS One, what honour for the journal.
Zhila Maghbooli, Mohammad Ali Sahraian, Mehdi Ebrahimi, Marzieh Pazoki, Samira Kafan, Hedieh Moradi Tabriz, Azar Hadadi, Mahnaz Montazeri, Mehrad Nasiri, Arash Shirvani, Michael F. Holick Vitamin D sufficiency, a serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D at least 30 ng/mL reduced risk for adverse clinical outcomes in patients with COVID-19 infection PLoS ONE (2020) doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0239799
This time, the authors saved “only” 235 patients in Iran, while PLOS One informs you: “The authors have declared that no competing interests exist“. Not even Holick, half of whose business is Vitamin D grifting (the other half being helping child abusers in court).
But now, the best Vitamin D for COVID-19 paper ever. Straight from the French Parliament, Assemblée National, and its MP, Joachim Son-Forget. This professional politician once studied medicine and did a PhD in psychology, which automatically made him expert for many things sciency, these days always ready with an educated and even peer-reviewed guess about COVID-19. Son-Forget has been promoting HCQ on Twitter and he of course is a great admirer of the greatest French scientist of all times, Didier Raoult (for whom he even raised money, it seems).
A great scientific mind himself, Son-Forget (and colleagues) postulated in Medical Hypotheses, a comedy magazine run by Elsevier, “that betathalassemic heterozygote population prevalence is correlated to immunity against COVID-19, by a regression“. Would you like to see the data they based this assumption on?
The polymath knowledge of Dr Son-Forget, MP is evident in his genius way of plotting that regression.
Incidentally, the authors list there was exactly same as on this stroke of genius, this time about the Vitamin D:
Édouard Lansiaux, Philippe P. Pébaÿ, Jean-Laurent Picard, Joachim Son-Forget Covid-19 And Vit-D: Disease Mortality Negatively Correlates With Sunlight Exposure Spatial and Spatio-temporal Epidemiology (2020) doi: 10.1016/j.sste.2020.100362
The authors (or rather only Edouard Lansiaux who has to vouch for everything) analysed COVID-19 related health data from France, except colonies and Corsica because the authors decided they have much sun but not enough hospitals there. They concluded:
“in continental metropolitan France, average annual sunlight hours are significantly (for a p-value of 1.532 × 10−32) correlated to the COVID-19 mortality rate, with a Pearson coefficient of -0.636. This correlation hints at a protective effect of sunlight exposure against COVID-19 mortality.“
And indeed, there is no COVID-19 at all in Marseille, famous for its radiant sun (who is of course Didier Raoult). Don’t believe the news.
A Letter to Editor regarding that article by Son-Forget was published in the same journal, its authors are Florian Naudet, Clara Locher, Alain Braillon and André Gillibert. They listed “Major statistical flaws”in Son-Forget’s research and concluded:
“the manuscript has no informative value at all concerning any association between “Covid-19 And Vit-D”. Therefore, we think that the article methods and conclusions are too flawed to have any value.“
But, as scholarly authorities advice, we must remain open regarding Vitamin D as COVID-19 medicine. Especially since the former CDC director Tom Frieden advised Americans already in March 2020 to take Vitamin D supplements for COVID-19 prevention.
The Vitamin D hype is working. Even Anthony Fauci himself recently advocated the supplement:
“If you are deficient in vitamin D, that does have an impact on your susceptibility to infection. So I would not mind recommending, and I do it myself taking vitamin D supplements“.
The 78 year old Fauci also recommended taking Vitamin C:
“that vitamin C is “a good antioxidant.” “So if people want to take a gram or two at the most [of] vitamin C, that would be fine”
Sure, people in Fauci’s age are in danger of vitamin deficiency and some might need supplements to support their weakened immune system. But old age is about much more than maybe lacking some Vitamin D, so the causality with COVID-19 severity is very strenuous there at best. Maybe it all is Fauci’s diplomatic way for distracting Americans from taking HCQ. Or drinking bleach.
And anyway, the only real prevention cure for COVID-19 is cabbage.
Update 15.12.2020
Of all Vitamin D papers out there, this one by marketing professor Bernd Skiera from my neighbourhood Goethe University Frankfurt takes the proverbial biscuit.
Rahul Kalippurayil Moozhipurath, Lennart Kraft & Bernd Skiera, Evidence of protective role of Ultraviolet-B (UVB) radiation in reducing COVID-19 deaths. Scientific Reports (2020). doi: 10.1038/s41598-020-74825-z
Brief summary:
- COVID-19 deaths are caused by Vitamin D deficiency, science fact
- UV light is great
- But UV light is also bad, in can cause cancer
- Solution: buy Vitamin D supplements, a preventive and therapy for COVID-19!
Now read this Conflict of Interest disclaimer:
“RKM is a PhD student at Goethe University, Frankfurt. He also is a full-time employee of a multinational chemical company involved in vitamin D business and holds the shares of the company. This study is intended to contribute to the ongoing COVID-19 crisis and is not sponsored by his company. BS also holds shares of the company.”
The company is BASF, Rahul KM does consulting for it. BS does not stand for bullshit, but for Professor Bernd Skiera, The Teutonic Genius Who Saved The World from COVID-19.
Update 28.12.2020
Now it gets serious, the IT folks are the to solve Covid-19!
The Open Letter from 7 December 2020, organised by the former Google exec and now anti-aging biotech investor Karl Pfleger , IT entrepreneur Gareth Davies and some others, is signed by currently 150 doctors, academics and British politicians (all disclose their own daily Vitamin D supplement uptake). It declares:
“Vitamin D is much safer than steroids, such as dexamethasone, the most widely accepted treatment to have also demonstrated a large COVID-19 benefit. Vitamin D’s safety is more like that of face masks.”
The list of signatories includes shills like Holick, but also other names I recognise: the Twitter celebrity doctor Eric Feigl-Ding, former Brexit negotiator David Davis MP and UCL’s chief eugenics enthusiast Steve Jones.
Oh, and there is also another “Evidence Synthesis” paper from the UK:
George Griffin, Martin Hewison, Julian Hopkin, Rose Kenny , Richard Quinton, Jonathan Rhodes, Sreedhar Subramanian and David Thickett Vitamin D and COVID-19: evidence and recommendations for supplementation Royal Society Open Science (2020) doi: 10.1098/rsos.201912
We learn that people with dark skin are low in Vitamin D and hence die of COVID-19 more often. While look, Italians and Spaniards don’t get enough sunlight:
The paper concludes:
“There seems nothing to lose and potentially much to gain by recommending vitamin D supplementation for all, e.g. at 800–1000 IU/day,”
Two authors (including Thickett) declared to receive speaking honoraria from Vitamin D seller Thornton Ross.
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The French Académie Nationale de Médecine has recommended vitamin D since May (see http://www.academie-medecine.fr/vitamin-d-and-covid-19/?lang=en), though the French government has not followed suit on that yet. One of the statements of the recommendation is: “Vitamin D cannot be considered as a preventive or a curative treatment for CoV-2 SARS infection. However, by mitigating the inflammatory storm and its consequences, it could be considered as an adjunct to any form of therapy.” Neither preventive, nor curactive, but it could, maybe, perhaps help? Yeah, it “could”. That’s enough to make it 21st century science.
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I have been a passive follower of this subject since early April which I obtained a U.K. study associating latitudes and resulting higher rates of Vitamin D deficiency. They hypothesis they present to apply equally to Influenza and Covid.One of the factual parts of this study discovered that patients presenting with ARDS (ventilator candidates) 90% of them were Vitamin D deficient. A co-worker with a hospital director friend who was a member of a forum of 30 treating physicians in early April liked three things in their treatments of their patient. HCQ, Vitamin D, Zinc in early April. The U.K. issued a Public Health Notice around 5/1 for the entire populace to supplement with Vitamin D at a level of 400 IU.
I got a copy of a Philippine study, 222 patients, Conclusion deficient 30 ng/ml mild disease. 7 times less likely to have Critical disease if one is not deficient. Four times less likely to have severe disease if one is not deficient. But when looking at the tables the insufficient group was mixed. As ones level increased the level of severity decreased. I have read where there is a coefficient of additional protection for each nanogram increase in Vitamin D levels. There is an Indonesian study. Group of 50 deficient treated with Vitamin D 2 persons required ICU, 2nd group of 26 not treated with Vitamin D 13 persons ended up in ICU.
University of Chicago Study published 9/3. Actual study was performed during the month of March when they was a lack of testing. They only saw sick people. They hypothesized people not deficient could be immune. But the observations in this study were well defined. Vitamin D deficiency with critical disease and death. Boston University study. Some are discounting it because Holick is being called a shill for the Vitamin D industry and Quest Diagnostics does testing.
190,000 blood draws and they had 30% of Caucasians found to be deficient. *2% of African Americans to be deficient.
African Americans have a high rate of critical disease and death. As to some of the other possible conclusions I am a little more skeptic. They actually believe the possibility that very high levels of Vitamin D possibly offer immunity.
Personally I think a hypothesis where those that are infected but are asymptomatic may have higher levels.
I also wonder if it is possible that if the previous sentence is true then why do we need Covid or Influenza vaccinations. After all, a vaccination is not a cure. Does not prevent infection just, hopefully, makes it mild.
What I want to see. A nationwide trial for everyone testing positive to also get a blood draw to ascertain Vitamin D levels.
I found something tonight that another enzyme may need to be included as well. People hospitalized will have their disease charted in the hospital. For those told to self quarantine give them a check off form to complete daily of any symptoms experienced. Exact levels of blood serum for each individual to be tracked by that level. Not just grouped in three categories. Stress compliance to complete forms to be mandatory. Pick them up, if necessary. We could have a million enrollees in less than a month. One would think that would get the corrupt CDC, NIH to ake notice. Not double blind, placebo controlled, just a large observational trial. What they hate. I don’t think they can ignore the results.
And yes, I believe they to be criminal organizations. It’s criminal with the information they have received, albeit not perfect, is displaying a relationship between severity and deficiency that they are not standing on a stage warning people to supplement and get tested. National defense act to increase supply of supplements. 95% of ingredients are imported.
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Another otherwise good comment undermined about nonsense about vaccines and and immunity. In most cases, most vaccines (except flu and rabies) do completely prevent infection: it’s flat wrong to say “After all, a vaccination is not a cure. Does not prevent infection just, hopefully, makes it mild.”
It’s also flat wrong to claim high serum levels of Vit D offer “immunity”, or anything similar. At best it might reduce the risk of infection and severe disease, but the former seems unlikely from the existing studies. What is possible – and isn’t answered by the existing studies – is that the healthy levels of Vit D (whatever they are, and it may be that current thresholds are inadequate) reduce the risk of severe disease. It’s therefore important to separate the two, and disassociate the plausible hypothesis from nonsense about Vit D possibly offering immunity.
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This si a very informative article about the relationship between nutrient and covid.
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Geneva hospitals updated their unfortunately still negative review of Vitamin D Covidolysis. https://www.hug.ch/sites/interhug/files/structures/coronavirus/documents/vitamine-d-et-covid-19.pdf.pdf
More (in Swiss language as Obama and Johny Walker Bush would say ) at :
https://www.hug.ch/coronavirus/recommandations-pour-professionnels-sante#considerations
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Oh of course you’re right! Because if it’s not a new, expensive, profitable pharmaceutical drug, it can’t possibly help any disease. lol! Now I’ve heard it all. Is this a site for pharma friends?
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This site is funded by Gilead, Soros and Rotschild!
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Leonid Schneider…well named indeed. You appear to enjoy spewing vitriol and attempting acerbity,
managing on most accounts at this, except for the witty part.
I note that you list yourself as a failed scientist. Perhaps you could update your cv to include failed science journalist and cartoonist.
Are you bitter about something in your life? Is Sniderland just part of your nom de plume cover to create interest in your articles when you are really a lovely chap just trying to make a buck?
Science is never a closed book especially to those with open minds.
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A major Dutch newspaper is now promoting Vitamine D as well based on this research: https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/12/3642/htm
Very curious what you would think about it LS. Don’t feel obliged to respond but I guess it’s FYI.
Thanks for the work you do.
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It’s a 3-paragraph comment on another MDPI paper from Heidelberg:
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6643/12/9/2757/htm
That one is a “non-interventional” clinical trial, meaning they measured Vitamin D levels in Covid-19 patients admitted to the university hospital, then draw their preconceived conclusions, which only MDPI was inclined to publish. Nobody was treated with any Vitamin D there.
I wrote about MDPI high selectivity yesterday:
https://forbetterscience.com/2020/12/29/mdpi-and-racism/
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See also https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7406600/ (‘Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of International Society for Infectious Diseases’).
The author lists ‘Mathematical and Statistical Methods (Biometris), Wageningen University, P.O. Box 16, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands’ as affiliation. Is it correct to state that this means that Wageningen University is endorsing the views in this article.
See https://twitter.com/goddeketal for backgrounds about this author.
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As to whether “Wageningen University is endorsing the views in this article”, the Organizational Chart at https://www.wur.nl/en/About-Wageningen/Organisation-chart-of-Wageningen-University-Research.htm and its linked “Organogram” at https://www.wur.nl/en/show/Organogram-WUR-20191231-EN.htm (and https://www.wur.nl/en/show/Organogram-WUR-20191231-NL.htm) seem to indicate that Biometris is administratively coordinate, not subordinate, to the university proper. Nothing else I have found in a cursory review of the (English) text on http://www.wur.nl explicitly addresses your question, but perhaps you can find more there (or in the Dutch text).
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Publisher Frontiers was willing to publish https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.585229 (“Systems Thinking About SARS-CoV-2”).
This peer-reviewed article of the astronomer Rainer Klement http://rainerklement.com/?page_id=412 contains the following sentences:
“Unfortunately, we live in an age in which fewer and fewer scholars have serious competence beyond their own increasingly narrow field of research.”
“Unfortunately, the computer models that had been used to justify the lockdown interventions in many Western countries had not taken these immune responses offering partial protection of a significant percentage of the population into account”
“Furthermore, the public is rarely informed that an optimally functioning immune system requires the presence or absence of certain factors.”
“The strongest evidence to date is available for vitamin D whose main natural supply is not through diet, but solar UV-B radiation on the skin (path B in Figure 1). Higher vitamin D levels have been linked to lower COVID-19 incidence, death rates and hospitalizations in epidemiological studies (33–35). First clinical data suggested that higher vitamin D levels are associated with less severe courses of COVID-19 (36, 37). A recent randomized controlled trial has shown a highly significant benefit of high vitamin D supplementation in COVID-19 patients: out of 50 patients receiving 25-hydroxyvitamin D in addition to standard treatment2 only one required intensive care unit admission compared to 13 out of 26 patients having not received vitamin D (p < 0.001) (38). Given the cost-effectiveness and safety of vitamin D and other immune-supporting nutrient supplements, some authors have rightfully argued that public health officials should encourage their adequate intake through a healthy diet and supplementation (26, 27).”
“Enforced prolonged wearing of face masks is also problematic, as demonstrated by Daniela Prousa who revealed that ~60% of the German population experienced severe psychosocial problems already 5–7 weeks after installment of a public mask wearing decree (43)”.
“The “collective statistical illiteracy” of health care professionals, journalists and politicians (51, 52) is nothing more than a lack of transdisciplinary knowledge in mathematics and statistics. It is contributing to incorrect information about the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 with the effect of increasing both the public fear and impulsive actions from governments (…)”
Frontiers was willing to publish these texts after an approval by three peer-reviewers and one editor.
There is at the bottom of this article a comment from Linda L Benskin (“This is a positively brilliant indictment of the current state of affairs. Thank you so much for articulating the underlying problem so well. (….) The Great Barrington Declaration was dismissed out of hand because these leaders are unable to grasp what the framers of the document intended – it requires looking at more than one aspect of the problem at the same time.”).
Author Rainer Klement is also known as one of the 22 authors of the ‘External peer review of the RTPCR test to detect SARS-CoV–2 reveals 10 major scientific flaws at the molecular and methodological level: consequences for false positive results’, see https://www.pepijnvanerp.nl/2020/12/some-considerations-on-the-retraction-paper-for-the-corman-drosten-pcr-test/ for backgrounds.
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All the nonsensical scepticism about the effectiveness about the PCR test, masks and lockdowns achieves is to discredit otherwise good points about Vit D. It’s not helpful, and as someone who advocates a very narrow, specific point about the Vit D hypothesis and the risk/benefit calculation of supplementation I feel I need to explicitly disassociate myself and the points I’ve made from such quackery.
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It’s a fact. That whenever you challenge the Establishment/Orthodoxy you are going to become a target. It’s easy to peddle all kinds of racist nonsense wrapped up in equations, models, and Stats. The history of science is full of it.Race and IQ attract nutters and racists. Science is not value-free, completely objective, and racially neutral.
I’m surprised that Black Lives Matter has fallen for the Vit D theory. The theory is ideology. But as old Marx said, “the ruling ideology is the ideology of the ruling class. The way to protect the BAME community is to provide socialized medical provision, therapeutics, and care, free at the point of use and not just a bloody Vit D supplement.
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Simon Goddek, author of the peer-reviewed publication “Vitamin D3 and K2 and their potential contribution to reducing the COVID-19 mortality rate”, lists at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Simon_Goddek2 :
“Current affiliation / Wageningen University & Research / Wageningen, Netherlands / Department of Mathematical and Statistical Methods Time period Mar 2018 – Present”.
“Professional experience Wageningen University & Research / February 2019 – Present / Department of Mathematical and Statistical Methods / PostDoc Position”
Simon Goddek is not listed at https://research.wur.nl/en/organisations/mathematical-and-statistical-methods-biometris/persons/ Simon Goddek is listed as “Former group members (…) Simon Goddek / PhD student” at https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Chair-groups/Agrotechnology-and-Food-Sciences/Biobased-Chemistry-Technology-Group/People.htm Simon Goddek got his PhD on 24 October 2017. See https://www.wur.nl/nl/activiteit/Opportunities-and-Challenges-of-Multi-Loop-Aquaponic-Systems-.htm
Simon Goddek wrote on 5 January 2021 at https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1346428529664290816
“I am UNDER FIRE since I have written a post on the flawed peer-review process of @c_drosten ‘s PCR paper. I will discuss some accusations in this thread and explain why the pure peer-review process window was even shorter than 2 days.”
That’s of course a very unfortunate situation.
Naomi Wolf writes on 7 January 2021 in a thread at https://twitter.com/naomirwolf/status/1347267414652641280
“Just had an interview scheduled with Dr Simon Goddek, the post-doctoral researcher at the Faculty of Mathematics and Statistics in the field of biotechnology, at an unnamed Dutch university. This researcher has been publicly pointing out that the paper that the PCR test as the gold standard underlying global “lockdowns” was passed after maximum ONE day of peer review, as opposed to the average at that same journal of 172 days in 2019. Also that several authors have conflicts of interest. Unfortunately we were forced to cancel because he was strongly advised by his university to maintain silence and not speak publicly — to step back from this issue. I learned from a source that his university was heavily assailed by many complaints. Other scientists who have signed the review criticizing the PRCtest, the “Retraction Request Letter”, a critique that got worldwide attention, have also been bombarded with attacks, their relatives are being called at night, and their universities assailed. Some are at risk of losing jobs. Even former employers are being harassed. I note: scientists around the world are being silenced and harassed if they speak up in normal criticism of the scientific methods or conclusions used to advance the lockdown agenda and COVID testing. This is not post-enlightenment scientific discourse, this is how scientists are treated in police states and totalitarian societies. I also note that this strategy of repetitional attacks in which organized campaigns of harassment and complaint are aimed at people’s publishers, universities and employers in order to silence them, is a tool being directed systematically against commentators in what should normal debate and open dialogue. It happened to me, to Dr Michael Mann, and now these campaigns of harassment are being directed at scientists whose findings reveal possible huge flaws in COVID related research. When universities and publishers give in to this kind of bullying and harassment, I know it is tempting to do so and step out of the line of fire, but from having studied closing societies, it will be six months before they too are forced to swallow a party line and before all real scientific enquiry, all real journalism, all open debate, is closed forever. I beg this unnamable university to allow this analyst to speak to me and to the world which wants to hear what he has to say as the Enlightenment taught us was valuable in assessing data, information.”
That’s of course once again a very unfortunate situation.
Which unnamed university? The University of Harderwijk? (“The university of Harderwijk did not have a good reputation, because of its low standards.”, source Wikipedia). Or maybe the University of Franeker?
WUR = Wageningen University & Research is the name of an entity with 2 branches. One branch is the University of Wageningen = WU. The other branch is a whole range of research institutes. “Plant Research” is one of these research institutes. ‘Biometrics’ is one of the ‘Business units’ of “Plant Research”. See https://www.wur.nl/en/Research-Results/Research-Institutes/plant-research/biometris.htm
“Mathematical and Statistical Methods – Biometris” is another name for this ‘Business unit’.
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Simon Goddek lists in his article “Vitamin D3 and K2 and their potential contribution to reducing the COVID-19 mortality rate” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7406600/
“Conflict of interests / The author declares that they have no competing interests in this section.”
“Author information / Mathematical and Statistical Methods (Biometris), Wageningen University, P.O. Box 16, 6700 AA Wageningen, The Netherlands”
Simon Goddek (SG) wrote on Twitter on 5 January 2020: “The sad fact is that none of these attackers is actually dealing with what I have written. The lawyer and former judge Peter Nagel for instance, is already trying to discredit me since last night, reading back my tweets from several months ago.”
This tweet is a response on a thread at https://twitter.com/drpeternagel/status/1346238895697100800 :
“Vitamin D hat ja immer mal ein revival. Nun wird es mit Corona erneut an die Oberfläche gespült. Das macht mich doch sehr skeptisch. Die Selbstinszenierung einzelner Protagonisten trägt ein Übriges bei.
1/ Skeptisch macht es mich z.B., wenn Herr @goddeketal auf Twitter eine Kausalität als sicher darstellt, während er in seiner Publikation lediglich von „circumstancial evidence“ spricht. Wie denn nun? [2 tweets of SG embedded]
[SG: “Same accounts for South Africa. Go outside, enjoy the sun. Whenever there is no sun, go and swallow 3000IU vitamin D per day. This is how you can get the mortality rate down. Lockdowns just cause more damage over a longer period of time. ROOT CAUSES, GUYS!!!”, 28 October 2020]
[SG: “Just a reminder: take your vitamin D. Sun or supplement (during the winter). It’s crucial for having a working immune system. It’s no coincidence that viruses hit you much harder during the late winter.”, 7 December 2020]
2/ Ich stehe da vor einem Rätsel. Theoretisch kennt sich Herr @goddeketal mit dem Unterschied zwischen Kausalität und Korrelation aus. Warum pfuscht er dann in der Praxis damit rum? Bild links.
[SG: “In this thread, I will talk about the principle of ‘causality’ and ‘correlation’ with respect to our immune system and the reputed #COVID19 pandemic and why we are on the wrong path.”, 31 December 2020]
4/ Ich habe ich Herrn @goddeketal gefragt, warum er zu Vitamin D auf Twitter eine These vertritt, die seiner wissenschaftlichen Publikation widerspricht. Leider keine Antwort. Er inszeniert sich lieber als Opfer. [several tweets of SG embedded]
[SG: “Yes, Peter. I am a supporter of vitamin D. I even publish about it. The paper might contain mistakes, but I have written it to the best of my knowledge AND it actually got peer-reviewed, which required contentual corrections. Even if you do not agree with my view on vitamin D, @drpeternagel, I am open for fruitful discussions and exchange of knowledge. Starting a “public message” with ad hominem attacks (“self-exposer”, etc.) is counterproductive and reflects low-tier communication standards. I do not even consider my view on vitamin D being biased as I helped to debunk a big scientific fraud in this field (and in favour of D3), which even involved collaborations with governmental authorities in South-East Asia. https://researchveracity.info/alra/ “, 5 January 2020]
5/ Warum also bläst Herr @goddeketal bei Vitamin D eine Korrelation zur Kausalität auf? Zunächst ist festzustellen, dass er nicht nur wissenschaftlich, sondern auch wirtschaftlich aktiv ist. Bild http://goddek.com
6/ Das lässt sich konkretisieren. Vlnr, meine Hervorhebungen @goddeketal http://goddek.com, https://leakygut.de
7/ Es ist letztlich ganz banal: Herr @goddeketal ist CEO einer Gesellschaft, die u.a. Vitamin D vertreibt. Per Link kommt man zum passenden Produkt. Vlnr, meine Hervorhebungen https://leakygut.de/leaky-gut-behandlung/#supplemente…, https://fairvital.com/de/vitalstoffgruppen/vitamine/vitamin-d3-1000-i-e-90-kapseln?p=805800&banner_id=1…, https://leakygut.de/impressum/
8/ Das kann natürlich alles Zufall sein: Aus Korrelation wird Kausalität und das korreliert wiederum mit dem Umstand, dass Herr @goddeketal Vitamin D vertreibt. Hauptsache es ist transparent. Richtig?
9/ Ups 😉 [“Conflict of interests / The author declares that they have no competing interests in this section.”]
10/ So, nun bin ich doch sehr auf die „fruitful discussions“ gespannt. Und bitte Herr @goddeketal, zitieren Sie mich zukünftig richtig 😉
11/ Noch ein Nachtrag zu Quellen. Funktion als CEO https://leakygut.de/impressum/ + LinkedIn Maßstab zur Offenlegung von Interessenkonflikten https://elsevier.com/journals/international-journal-of-infectious-diseases/1201-9712?generatepdf=true
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Simon Goddek had not disclosed in his article “Vitamin D3 and K2 and their potential contribution to reducing the COVID-19 mortality rate” https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijid.2020.07.080 that he was owner of a webshop which is selling vitamine supplements. The url of this webshop is at the moment inactive, snapshots are archived at https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://www.leakygut.de/ Anyone any idea what’s going on? Does this imply that this vitamine selling business of Simon Goddek does not exist anymore?
The contents of several tweets at https://twitter.com/goddeketal reveal towards my opinion that Simon Goddek can be regarded as a hard-core covid denialist.
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Roman Zieliński is “a professor of biology with a specialization in genetics with almost 40 years of experience in research and teaching.” He “created from scratch the Department of Genetics at the University of Szczecin, which was one of the first units introducing PCR analysis into genetic research (1995).”
A long interview with Roman Zieliński is posted at https://stolikwolnosci.pl/roman-zielinski-on-pfizers-genetic-vaccine-and-pcr-tests/ This interview contains remarkable views.
“Meanwhile, it is not the age, but lifestyle that is the main risk factor. Our grandmothers, who rarely got sick, knew about it, but ate homemade products made with vegetables collected in their own garden. (….) Dr. Marek Wasiluk in an extensive article on Onet considers obesity as one of the causes of the acute course of COVID. (….) Not only do we have a serious disease called chronic medical failure syndrome, but we also have a reduced immunity as a result of many months of wearing microbial incubators on the face, sitting at home, and therefore limiting the intake of vitamin D. Therefore, let’s not go crazy and lead a healthy lifestyle without masks and with lots of activity. I have already started and for this occasion I prepared 30 kg of sauerkraut. If so, I will survive the winter by supplementing myself with a self-made “vitamin bomb”.”
“Unfortunately, in the era of Covidianism, the basic principle that has been in force for centuries was forgotten. Recommendations have been made that contradict the ancient knowledge and essence of a man as a biological species. Ban on leaving the house, face masks, excessive sterilization of rooms and body – these are recommendations that lead to increased susceptibility to disease, and not those that protect against them.”
“The orders to wear masks, which constitute a breeding ground for microorganisms, and the prohibition of walking, singing, dancing, meetings, together with coercing unwanted therapies and threatening with vaccines is unprecedented violence, which in fact leads to the death of a significant part of the population.”
“We found out that this preparation, called a “vaccine”, is a product of genetic engineering in the form of a recombinant RNA construct. (…). This specimen cannot be called a vaccine. This is not a vaccine in its essence. I call it an mRNA construct, recombinant RNA, a product that is genetically engineered.”
“The 20-year patent protection for the flu vaccine had ended and the flu had to disappear. COVID has appeared in its place.”
“We were only surprised that no Polish scientist agreed with us, but determined our ignorance, on the contrary.”
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“Send me Covidiocy papers, Frontiers and whereever else you find them!” [LS]
Rainer Klement, author of https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2020.585229 (“Systems Thinking About SARS-CoV-2”), see my earlier posting, is one of the 22 authors of a new preprint at https://osf.io/9mjy7/ (archived version at https://archive.is/brCWP ). This preprint “Addendum to the Corman-Drosten Review Report” was published on 11 January 2021. It is stated at page 41 of this new preprint:
“Even if the RT-qPCR test was optimal and had theoretically sensitivity and specificity of 100%, it is medical malpractice to use RT-qPCR and other rapid tests outside the need for specific antiviral therapy in symptomatic or severely ill hospitalised patients. Interpreting positive tests as ‘medical cases’ without consideration of internal controls and viral Ct with clinical context, nor consideration of other viruses or diseases that cause similar symptoms as COVID-19, enables politicians to practice medicine on entire populations. This lack of clinical integration has led to problems in the past.”
Frank Visser states at http://www.integralworld.net/visser194.html about this new preprint:
“Methinks the Consortium would feel competent to create the perfect PCR test for SARS-CoV-2, but paradoxically in the end they don’t care about any PCR test improvements, for in their understanding they are useless for large-scale diagnosis and surveillance of an emerging pandemic. The whole operation by the Consortium is done in bad faith: critiquing an early PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 in the strongest terms without any intention of improving on it.”
Three of the 22 authors of this Corman-Drosten Review Report and of the addendum, Berber Pieksma, Jan Bonte and Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens, are living in The Netherlands.
Berber Pieksma is a GP with a lengthy disclaimer at the website of her employer about her current activities, see https://www.huisartsenpraktijkdekern.nl/
See also https://www.lc.nl/friesland/ooststellingwerf/Huisarts-mag-blijven-preken-tegen-vaccins-It-giet-wol-hiel-fier-wat-se-seit-mar-se-is-der-frij-yn-26343158.html (behind a paywall).
Jan Bonte is a neurologist which was recently sacked by Ikazia Ziekenhuis Rotterdam, see https://www.rijnmond.nl/nieuws/202146/Ikazia-Ziekenhuis-zet-veelbesproken-neuroloog-Jan-Bonte-op-zijspoor and https://www.rtvoost.nl/nieuws/1487024/Neuroloog-Jan-Bonte-uit-Dalfsen-weggestuurd-door-Rotterdams-ziekenhuis
Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens (“Dr. Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens, MSc, PhD, specialist in Laboratory Medicine, clinical chemistry, Maasziekenhuis Pantein, Beugen, the Netherlands”) is an employee of a Dutch hospital https://www.maasziekenhuispantein.nl/ It is remarkable that the website of this hospital has not a similar sort of disclaimer about the current activities of Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens.
The Corman-Drosten Review Report was submitted to Eurosurveillance without disclosing that author
Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens has a side-job as member of the board of Antroposana, source https://www.antroposana.nl/over-antroposana/anbi-gegevens
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Dear Leonid,
Jan Bonte, a Dutch neurologist who was recently sacked, see above, is one of the 22 authors of the Corman-Drosten Review Report. This review was submitted to Eurosurveillance in the end of November 2020. See, eg,https://web.archive.org/web/20201128002522/http://www.cormandrostenreview.com/ Jan Bonte is listed in this review as “Dr. med. Jan Bonte (GJ), Consultant Neurologist, the Netherlands”.
The title “Dr. med.” seems to indicate that Jan Bonte earned this title at a German university. Do you happen to know if this is correct and are you aware at which (German) university this has taken place?
I was unable to find this information at https://www.janbhommel.com/ (website of Jan Bonte) and athttps://twitter.com/hommel_b (Twitter account of Jan Bonte).
Jan Bonte is featured at https://www.medischcontact.nl/nieuws/laatste-nieuws/artikel/een-opleiding-met-hindernissen.htm This article was published in April 2008. It contains a postscript in which it is stated “per 1 april is Jan Bonte werkzaam in het Marienhospital in Kevelaer (Duitsland).” Translated, ‘Jan Bonte is since 1 April working at Marienhospital at Kevelaer (Germany)”.
Jan Bonte reflects in postings at https://www.janbhommel.com/ on experiences as working as a neurologist in German hospitals / clinics.
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Simon Goddek is author of “Vitamin D3 and K2 and their potential contribution to reducing the COVID-19 mortality rate” https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7406600/ Simon Goddek also has a webshop which is selling Vitamine supplements, see https://leakygut.de/ (in German).
Simon Goddek tweeted yesterday from São Bernardo do Campo (Brazil): “Having some decent beers now with hospital personnel of https://twitter.com/fmabcoficial , stating that the observed #COVID false positive rate lays around 90% and the hospital occupancy rate doesn’t differ from the last years. Stop testing asymptomatic people!” Source: https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1350856508767162368
Simon Goddek tweeted a few hours earlier: “In my spare time, I love reading scientific papers and creating causal-loop-diagrams to better understand the metabolism. My message to you is that the shown green factors improve health whereas red factors should be avoided. #COVID is standing no chance against a healthy body!”
Naomi Wolf has in the meanwhile posted at DailyClout (“a platform that empowers real people to build & exert real political clout, turning them into do-it-yourself lobbyists, journalists & leaders.”) an interview with Simon Goddek, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AiTQt-Znzk&feature=youtu.be This video has the title ““Dr. Naomi Wolf and Academic Whistleblower Dr. Simon Goddek”.
Do the statements of Simon Goddek mean that there are valid motives to argue that Simon Goddek is a covidenialist?
See also https://twitter.com/goddeketal/status/1349819473444937735 :
“The number of publications about the impact of #vitaminD on the #COVID19 pandemic is exploding. In the first 2 weeks of January alone, @Scopus I recorded 29 new scientific papers addressing this topic. I’ll provide you with an overview of the most cited papers. #UnbiasedScience [see below]”, posted on 14 January 2021.
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Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens is one of the 22 authors (‘experts’) of the Corman-Drosten review report which was submitted to the journal Eurosurveillance in the end of November 2020.
The review lists “Dr. Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens (MSc, PhD), specialist in Laboratory Medicine (clinical chemistry), Maasziekenhuis Pantein, Beugen, the Netherlands” as information about this author. Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20201128002522/http://www.cormandrostenreview.com/
It seems to me that this means that readers of this review can assume that this review is endorsed by the affilation “Maasziekenhuis Pantein, Beugen, the Netherlands”, the employer of Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens. Source: https://www.maasziekenhuispantein.nl/specialisten/m-doesburg-van-kleffens/69/
This point of view is supported by the lack of a disclaimer in the review in which it is stated that this hospital does not endorse the statements and views in this review.
The Corman-Drosten review report contains towards the opinion of the Outbreak Management Team (the advisory board of the Dutch government in regard to the covid-19 pandemy) fakenews (‘desinformatie’) about the reliability of the PCR test and/or about the covid-19 pandemy. Source: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/documenten/brieven/2020/12/08/90e-omt-advies
“Berichtgeving COVID-19. Het OMT maakt zich zorgen over berichten in de media dat SARS-CoV-2 niet echt zou bestaan of dat de PCR geen betrouwbare test is. Het OMT vindt het wenselijk dat hierover duidelijk wordt gecommuniceerd en dat hierover stelling wordt ingenomen door de beleidsmakers, waarbij men zich uitspreekt dat bewuste desinformatie onacceptabel is.” (page 9).
It is therefore towards my opinion highly remarkable that a Dutch hospital is endorsing the views and statements in this review, and in particular given the statements about covid 19 at the website of this hospital (all of them fully in line with the policy in The Netherlands). Source: https://www.maasziekenhuispantein.nl/praktische-instructies (in Dutch, with a reference to https://www.rivm.nl/coronavirus/covid-19 ).
I have thus contacted the hospital about this topic. I received on 11 December a response from Olga ten Wolde, spokesperson of this hospital.
“Mevrouw Doesburg-Van Kleffens is bij deze review betrokken vanuit haar onafhankelijke wetenschappelijke achtergrond en niet als werknemer van het Maasziekenhuis. De affiliatie in de review is vermeld omdat dit vereist is bij een dergelijke publicatie.”
So Olga ten Wolde is claiming that it was mandatory for Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens to list the name of her employer as affiliation at this review.
Olga ten Wolde told me in the same e-mail: “Aangezien het geen publicatie van het Maasziekenhuis is en wij er niet bij betrokken zijn, kunnen wij er ook geen afstand van nemen. Wij zullen dit daarom niet op onze website vermelden.”
So Olga ten Wolde is claiming that the Corman-Drosen review which was submitted to Eurosurveillance is not a publication of this hospital and that is therefore not possible to post a disclaimer on the website of this hospital in which it is stated that this review contains fakenews about the covid-19 pandemy.
I have asked Olga ten Wolde to provide me evidence for her points of view, and in particular because I was unable to find at https://www.eurosurveillance.org/for-authors that it is mandatory for all authors to list the name of their employer as affiliation. Olga ten Wolde and others at this hospital have until now failed to send me this evidence.
Olga ten Wolde wrote to me on 21 December: “Wij zullen overigens niet opnieuw op berichten met een vergelijkbare inhoud reageren. Dit doen we om herhaling over en weer te voorkomen.”
So Olga ten Wolde has choosen not to rebut my arguments that such a obligation does not exist (for example illustrated by the information about several authors of the Corman-Drosten review).
Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens has studied chemistry at Leiden University and holds a PhD from Erasmus University, Rotterdam. Source: https://repub.eur.nl/pub/19838 (“The IGF system during growth and differentiation of the mouse”).
Her ResearchGate profile at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Marjolein_Doesburg states at the moment “She’s currently not involved in a research project.”
Others who are able to locate this obligation at https://www.eurosurveillance.org/for-authors ? Anyone any idea why Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens has not used her other affiliation (.i.e. member of the board of Antroposana, source https://www.antroposana.nl/afdelingen/nieuws/9/aspirant-bestuurslid-antroposana-stelt-zich-voor )?
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hi Leonid,
It has turned out that Marjolein Doesburg-van Kleffens, one of the many co-authors of the infamous Corman-Drosten review report, is not longer employed by Maasziekenhuis Pantein. Details are lacking, but it seems to me that it is likely that there is a relationship with this co-authorship. Maybe this hospital is willing to tell a journalist like you if she got sacked? The Twitter account of Doesburg https://twitter.com/marjoleindvk seems to indicate that she has not (yet) found a new job.
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