Why are CNN and the UK’s NICE Lying About Vitamin D and Covid-19 Mortality?
At the time of this writing, both CNN.com and the UK’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) claim that there is no evidence that vitamin D can protect people from Covid-19 mortality (Source: CNN, NICE). This is a flat-out lie as two recent independent pre-prints of medical articles (1, 2 — discussed in more detail below) establish beyond any reasonable doubt the role of Vitamin D deficiency in Covid-19 mortality rates. Despite the evidence, many academic and government medical researchers continue to deny the causal relationship. I don’t think academic and government medical researchers are all intentionally misleading us about the causal relationship relationship between Covid-19 and Vitamin D deficency — I would like to believe that most people go into the medical fields with the intention of saving people’s lives. However, science is much more political than most of us would like to believe, and it is often the case that researchers are unaware of the unconscious biases they hold towards coming to certain conclusions, (this is the whole reason for double-blind studies), especially when many have spent their careers advocating the other side of an issue.
There is clear statistical evidence proving that Vitamin D deficiency contributes to Covid-19 mortality. Because we have a clear understanding of what causes our bodies to produce Vitamin D, “correlation does not imply causation” is not relevant here. When you already know the causes of some of your data, further causation can sometimes be inferred from correlative data.
We know the following factors cause vitamin D deficiency:
• Being male (indirectly, through having a higher BMI)
• Dark skin
• Living further away from the equator
• Winter months
We know these same factors correlate to higher rates of Covid-19 mortality:
• Males and females catch Covid-19 at the same rate, but males are twice as likely to die
• Dark-skinned individuals are more likely to die from from Covid-19, even when “controlling for rates of uninsured, poverty, diabetes, or these other factors”
• Countries further from the equator have higher Covid-19 death rates
• The US Covid-19 mortality rate has decreased significantly during the summer
The reason why correlation does not automatically imply causation is that, either there might a third underlying factor that produces both effects, or it could just be a coincidence.
But with vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality, we have four independent cases that all cause Vitamin D deficiency and all are correlated to higher rates of Covid-19 mortality. It is highly unlikely that there is another causal factor, besides Vitamin D, associated with all four of our factors — maleness, being dark skinned, latitude, and summer. (Please let me know ASAP if you can find one!) It is also highly improbable for the same coincidence of higher Covid-19 mortality to occur in all 4 cases. Having eliminated these two cases, the only plausible conclusion left is that Vitamin D deficiency causes higher Covid-19 mortality.
There is no shortage of academic articles that have come to the same conclusions. In May, researchers at Northwestern University found that vitamin D plays a key in reducing Covid-19 mortality. “Not only does vitamin D enhance our innate immune systems, it also prevents our immune systems from becoming dangerously overactive. This means that having healthy levels of vitamin D could protect patients against severe complications, including death, from COVID-19.”
One preprint is not sufficient to claim proof, but two more academic articles, one from researchers out of Vanderbilt and Cal Tech and the other from Complete Med Care clinic in Dallas, came out in June. The Vanderbilt/Cal Tech researchers explain: “It is very likely that Vitamin D supplements have a large role in prevention and possibly treatment of COVID-19 disease. There is a strong correlation between prevalence of severe Vitamin D deficiency and the mortality rate per million from COVID-19 in the European countries, and it is strengthening over time.” Similarly, the team from Dallas writes that
“an analysis of global COVID-19 data using Causal Inference… showed that observed data strongly matched predictions made by the causal model.”
While the Northwestern article from May called for further research about the link between vitamin D deficiency and Covid-19 mortality, the two recent articles make much firmer recommendations:
“The safest course of action may be for populations vulnerable to COVID-19 may be to simply take a little daily dose of sunshine.” (Vanderbilt, Cal Tech)
“Authors recommend for physicians to universally screen for Vitamin D deficiency.” (Complete Med Care, Dallas)
These articles are receiving nowhere near the mainstream media coverage that pre-prints for the pharmaceutical drugs Remdesivir and dexamethasone immediately received. Why would CNN prioritize coverage of expensive pharmaceuticals to treat Covid-19 over a hormone that our bodies naturally produce in sunlight? One does not have to look very hard to find the answer.
