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Editorials Commercial Influence in Health: From Transparency to Independence

Commercial influence and covid-19

BMJ 2020; 369 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m2456 (Published 24 June 2020) Cite this as: BMJ 2020;369:m2456

Commercial influence in health: from transparency to independence

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Re: Commercial influence and covid-19 : Compounded by medical disinterest

Dear Editor
Never has "physician heal thyself" seemed more appropriate. The medical profession, globally, has ignored the single most pervasive, exacerbating cause of many diseases, including those involving innate and adaptive immunity including COVID. There is global deficiency of a key hormone. Commercial interests cannot be blamed for this failure: the regulatory bodies can. Such is the degree of specialisation in medicine that relying upon expert panels is essential - providing that advice is truly expert. In the case of this cheap ( even free) solution to a host of chronic diseases the advice from NICE/SACN and to some extent PHE ( one of their recommendations is approriate) is dangerously inexpert. Their advice ignores physiology. More here: https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2475/rr
The physiological serum level of this essential hormone is 100 to 150 nmol/L. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07315724.2015.1039866
Very few nations globally attain a mean level of 100. UK runs below 50. There are no profits so no commercial interest by pharma , so no RCTs that meet NICE criteria. That one error, of relying solely upon RCTs is dangerous to health. Most clinicians are unaware of the wide-ranging impacts of sub-physiological D3. Perusal of this site is highly recommended as a introduction into ca 5000 research papers published annually on D3: https://vitamindwiki.com/
It wont escape your attention that the global deficiency ( And that recommendation by PHE? : 4000 IU pd is safe. That will bring most of us up to physiological. For peanuts per day. And sunlight is free.

Competing interests: No competing interests

28 June 2020
Peter H Cobbold
Emeritus Professor, Cell Biology
University of Liverpool, UK
North Wales.