Lets spend $200m on an RSV vaccine for babies, but nothing on low vitamin D which dramatically increases risks?

By Jo Nova

Imagine we were spending $200 million to inject pregnant women and vaccinate babies against RSV, and the real cause of many of the life threatening cases was just low vitamin D?

RSV (Respiratory syncytial virus) is something nearly everyone catches by the time they are two years old. It’s like a bad cold. We’ll go on to catch it every few years for the rest of our lives, and it’s really only a problem for babies and the very old.

In the last week by some odd coincidence, the BBC, ABC and CBC all have stories promoting the idea of saving babies with RSV vaccines which often cost $300 dollars each (USD). The government rollouts are being promoted with free advertising on news programs that pretend to be journalists. But not a single journalist asked the obvious question — if most babies recover just fine, what is different about the babies that struggle. Could it be that low vitamin D puts them at risk?

Two studies suggest that babies with low vitamin D are, by golly, 5 to 10 times more likely to need intensive care.

Vitamin D3, Cholcalciferol.

Vitamin D3, Cholcalciferol.

Back in 2011, Belderbos et al looked at 158 babies and measured the levels of vitamin D in their cord blood and found those with low levels went on to have six times the risk of a severe lung infection compared to babies with normal levels. (Low was <50 nmol/L (20 ng/ml) and normal was 75 nmol/L (30 ng/ml). It was a small study but other studies at the time already showed vitamin D played a major role in stopping the inflammatory responses getting out of control.

By 2022, another study on 125 babies showed that the amount of virus each child had didn’t predict how severe their infection would be, but their vitamin D level when they arrived in hospital did. Those with the lowest vitamin D had a ghastly 11 fold increase in odds of suffering a life threatening illness. (Again low means <50nmol/L (20ng/ml)).

If 20% of babies are deficient in Vitamin D, and the 11 fold risk is not just an artefact, that means about half of the babies suffering a life threatening disease are struck down because of their deficiency. Maybe this is a gross overestimate, but where are the studies? Why aren’t our Ministers for Health launching big programs to figure it out? Even if the risk is only 50% more, these are actual babies we’re talking about.

And if we get the MAD misinformation laws, will anyone even be able to ask these questions?

Critics might be damaging confidence in “public health”.

Crazy people might think that if our Healthcare system was trying to save babies, rather than generate profits for Big Pharma (or Big Hospitals) the first thing they would do is study and fix the vitamin D deficiency. It’s not like this is an endangered animal or an exotic disease. It’s not a stretch to say every winter babies are dying because our health departments have little interest in vitamins or saving lives cheaply.

To give some idea of how many people this affects — in Ireland during winter about a third of all babies would be classified as deficient. But in sunny-country Australia, it’s hard to even find published numbers. Despite the blazing sun here, about a quarter of adults still have a deficiency, so there’s probably plenty to go around in baby-world.

Where is the cost benefit comparison?

The long term side effects of injecting pregnant women with a new type of therapy are completely unknown. The side effects of higher Vitamin D levels though, correlate with lower rates of cancer, diabetes, high blood pressure, asthma, heart disease, dental caries, preeclampsia, autoimmune disease, depression, anxiety, and sleep disorders.  Vitamin D influences over 200 genes — it is a chief meddler of molecules. Not only are deficient babies at risk of going down to RSV in a bad way, they’re at risk of autism spectrum disorder, behavioral disorders, schizophrenia, depression, and multiple sclerosis [Rogers et al].

As it happens, Vitamin D deficiency may cause as many as 40% of respiratory deaths in older people and one in six dementia cases. People deficient in Vitamin D are 14 times more likely to get severe forms of Covid. Vitamin D reduced intensive care by 80%. Despite all this low-hanging fruit littering the floor of hospitals, and vaporising dollars out of our medicare pot, Ministers apparently don’t want to know?

In the UK, Ontario and Australia the vaccine is free (or will be by next winter) for pregnant women and people over 75, but you’ll have to pay to get vitamin D (which doesn’t cost much). But you’d think if we have “free $300 injections” we could have free bottles of vitamin D3 at every post office and school?  In Australia, the government is paying $174 million for the vaccines, they call it “investing”. They argue that otherwise about 12,000 babies will be hospitalized each winter. But it only makes sense if we don’t “accidentally” make those babies healthier and keep them out of hospital in the first place doesn’t it?

And since you are wondering, yes, there is a new mRNA vaccine for RSV (by Moderna). There are also a couple of protein based ones.

Where’s the informed choice? Imagine if pregnant women were also  given information on the risks of being low in Vitamin D? At the moment, we’re barely even studying those risks, possibly so Ministers can say “there’s no evidence there is a better alternative.” It’s like the last thing our health system wants is good data on cheap alternatives.

REFERENCES

Belderbos ME, Houben ML, Wilbrink B, Lentjes E, Bloemen EM, Jan L et al. Low vitamin D levels linked with RSV infection. Pediatrics 2011;127: e1513–20. – PubMed , Pediatrics, 2011 Jun;127(6):e1513-20. doi: 10.1542/peds.2010-3054.

Ferolla et al. (2022)  Serum Vitamin D Levels and Life-Threatening Respiratory Syncytial Virus Infection in Previously Healthy Infants,”  The Journal of Infectious Diseases in 2022.

 

 

10 out of 10 based on 18 ratings

5 comments to Lets spend $200m on an RSV vaccine for babies, but nothing on low vitamin D which dramatically increases risks?

  • #
    Geoff

    The first thing to finance is blood tests and the marketing of same. A regular test will show potential problems. Hard data will change policies.

    Financing hospital rehabilitation programs is important for patients, their families and the hospital staff.

    Big business will create a crisis for it to service if allowed (financed by government). It’s part of their DNA. Do not expect it to be benevolent. Self interest rules.

    Government cannot operate efficiently from ignorance.

    Australia is a very rich country. Many businesses would cease to exist without government ignorance. Equally many worthwhile enterprises do not start or expand due to government regulation.

    A “tree” takes many years to grow but can be pruned or cut down in seconds.

    60

  • #
    Mike Jonas

    “It’s like the last thing our health system wants is good data on cheap alternatives.”.

    +42

    I shudder to think what Australia will become if the MAD Act is passed and then applied enthusiastically (and why would they pass the act if they didn’t intend to apply it enthusiastically). I suspect that very large numbers of good people will have to be prepared to be jailed.

    90

  • #
    Tony Tea

    Vitamin D dramatically increases risks? Dang(le) that modifier.

    00

  • #
    John Connor II

    German Economics Minister renews calls for widespread internet censorship, claims that an “axis of autocrats” is using domestic “populists” to poison democratic discourse via social media algorithms

    As they continue to lose elections and influence, our political elite will just get crazier and more dangerous.

    Demoralised by Trump’s election and their growing domestic unpopularity, our rulers are determined as never before to find some way of shutting up those inconvenient people who disagree with them. If only they can get us to stop sharing our unfiltered views on the internet, we can get back to the halcyon days of 2019 again, when the child saint Greta Thunberg was leading the children of the world on a glorious crusade against carbon dioxide and the Greens were polling stronger than ever before.

    https://www.eugyppius.com/p/german-economics-minister-renews

    Vitamin D, fresh air and sunshine are dangerous misinformation, which treatens the truth the government has been preaching which is that big pharma has pills and potions (s&e of course!) that’ll cure you and line pollie pockets from kickbacks.
    Nature and healthy foods are evil. Stay inside, stay safe! Eat bugs and trust pollies.

    30

  • #
    John Galt III

    America should do a Lend Lease program with Australia. We will send Robert F Kennedy Jr. over for a few
    weeks to educate your health departments and all we ask in return is a polite thank you and some uranium for our nuclear plants.

    30

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