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[sSRI-Research] The Origin of the 42-Year Stonewall of Vitamin C

 

The Origin of the 42-Year Stonewall of Vitamin C

Robert Landwehr 1

 

http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/199x/landwehr-r-j_orthomol_med-1991-v

6-n2-p99.htm

 

1. 1250 Grizzly Peak, Berkeley, CA 94708.

 

In the late spring of 1949 the United States was in the grip of its worst

poliomyelitis epidemic ever. On June 10 a paper on ways to save the lives of

bulbar polio victims was read at the Annual Session of the American Medical

Association (subsequently printed in its journal, JAMA, September 3, 1949,

pages 1-8, volume 141, no. 1). Following the talk members of the audience

were invited to comment. The first speaker, a leading authority from

Pasadena, focused on details of tracheotomy techniques caused when paralyzed

breathing, swallowing and coughing muscles of victims threatened their

lives. Why the next person was recognized is puzzling. The only national

recognition he had received ‹ and it was obviously very limited ‹ was that

his picture appeared in Ebony in 1947 for having delivered of a deaf-mute

black woman the first known surviving, identical quadruplets in the country.

Here is the abstract of his remarks as recorded in JAMA:

 

3Dr. F. R. Klenner, Reidsville, N.C.: It might be interesting to learn how

poliomyelitis was treated in Reidsville, N.C., during the 1948 epidemic. In

the past seven years, virus infections have been treated and cured in a

period of seventy-two hours by the employment of massive frequent injections

of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C. I believe that if vitamin C in these massive

doses ‹ 6,000 to 20,000 mg in a twenty-four hour period ‹ is given to these

patients with poliomyelitis none will be paralyzed and there will be no

further maiming or epidemics of poliomyelitis.2

 

The discussion period was, of course, to be devoted to hearing relevant

comments of the world1s leading authorities on the treatment of bulbar polio

symptoms, not to airing another claim of a cure. One can imagine the silence

that must have greeted this sweeping, out-of-place declaration by a

small-town general practitioner. Four other speakers, three more bulbar

experts and an anesthesiologist, followed. None referred to Dr. Klenner1s

remarks.

 

The empirical, clinical basis for Klenner1s statement is found in his paper

3The Treatment of Poliomyelitis and Other Virus Diseases with Vitamin C2,

published in the July 1949 issue of the Journal of Southern Medicine and

Surgery. On pages 211-212 he writes:

 

3In the poliomyelitis epidemic in North Carolina in 1948, 60 cases of this

disease came under our care. These patients presented all or almost all of

these signs and symptoms: Fever of 101 to 104.6°, headache, pain at the back

of the eyes, conjunctivitis, scarlet throat; pain between the shoulders, the

back of the neck, one or more extremity, the lumbar back; nausea, vomiting

and constipation. In 15 of these cases the diagnosis was confirmed by lumbar

puncture; the cell count ranging from 33 to 125. Eight had been in contact

with a proven case; two of this group received spinal taps. Examination of

the spinal fluid was not carried out in others for the reasons: (1) Flexner

and Amoss had warned that Œsimple lumbar puncture attended with even very

slight hemorrhage opens the way for the passage of the virus from the blood

into the central nervous system and thus promotes infection.1 (2) A patient

presenting all or almost all of the above signs and symptoms during an

epidemic of poliomyelitis must be considered infected with this virus. (3)

Routine lumbar puncture would have made it obligatory to report each case as

diagnosed to the health authorities. This would have deprived myself of

valuable clinical material and the patients of most valuable therapy, since

they would have been removed to a receiving center in a nearby town.

 

3The treatment employed was vitamin C in massive doses. It was given like

any other antibiotic every two to four hours. The initial dose was 1,000 to

2,000 mg, depending on age. Children up to four years received the

injections intramuscularly. Since laboratory facilities for whole blood and

urine determinations of the concentration of vitamin C were not available,

the temperature curve was adopted as the guide for additional medication.

The rectal temperature was recorded every two hours. No temperature response

after the second hour was taken to indicate the second 1,000 or 2,000 mg. If

there was a drop in fever after two hours, two more hours was allowed before

the second dose. This schedule was followed for 24 hours. After this time

the fever was consistently down, so the drug was given 1,000 to 2,000 mg

every six hours for the next 48 hours. All patients were clinically well

after 72 hours. After three patients had a relapse the drug was continued

for at least 48 hours longer ‹ 1,000 to 2,000 mg every eight to 12 hours.

Where spinal taps were performed, it was the rule to find a reversion of the

fluid to normal after the second thy of treatment.

 

3For patients treated in the home the dose schedule was 2,000 mg by needle

every six hours, supplemented by 1,000 to 2,000 mg every two hours by mouth.

The tablet was crushed and dissolved in fruit juice. All of the natural 3C2

in fruit juice is taken up by the body; this made us expect catalytic action

from this medium. Rutin, 20 mg, was used with vitamin C by mouth in a few

cases, instead of the fruit juice. Hawley and others have shown that vitamin

C taken by mouth will show its peak of excretion in the urine in from four

to six hours. Intravenous administration produces this peak in from one to

three hours. By this route, however, the concentration in the blood is

raised so suddenly that a transitory overflow into the urine results before

the tissues are saturated. Some authorities suggest that the subcutaneous

method is the most conservative in terms of vitamin C loss, but this factor

is overwhelmingly neutralized by the factor of pain inflicted.

 

3Two patients in this series of 60 regurgitated fluid through the nose. This

was interpreted as representing the dangerous bulbar type. For a patient in

this category postural drainage, oxygen administration, in some cases

tracheotomy, needs to be instituted, until the vitamin C has had sufficient

time to work ‹ in our experience 36 hours. Failure to recognize this factor

might sacrifice the chance of recovery. With these precautions taken, every

patient of the series recovered uneventfully within three to five days.2

 

This paper is quoted at length to allow readers to judge for themselves

whether or not Dr. Klenner made up all these details. In subsequent

publications he gave details about curing life-threatening polio cases, and

described his general procedures in his paper 3The Vitamin and Massage

Treatment for Acute Poliomyelitis2, appearing in the Journal of Southern

Medicine and Surgery in August, 1952.

 

One of the reasons why Klenner1s declaration at the AMA annual session was

undoubtedly met with silence was that since 1939 polio experts were quite

certain that vitamin C was not effective against polio. There seemed little

doubt that Dr. Albert B. Sabin, a highly respected figure in medical

research even before he developed his successful vaccines, had demonstrated

that vitamin C had no value in combatting polio viruses. In 1939 he

published a paper showing that vitamin C had no effect in preventing

paralysis in rhesus monkeys experimentally infected with a strain of polio

virus. He had tried to corroborate the work of Dr. Claus W. Jungeblut,

another highly respected medical researcher, who had published in 1935 and

1937 papers indicating that vitamin C might be of benefit. Sabin could not

reproduce Jungeblut1s results even though he consulted Jungeblut during the

course of the experiments. It seemed to be a fair trial, and Sabin1s

negative results virtually ended experiments with vitamin C and polio.

 

How then could a Dr. Fred R. Klenner, a virtually unknown general

practitioner specializing in diseases of the chest, from a town no one ever

heard of, with no national credentials, no research grants and no

experimental laboratory, have the nerve to make his sweeping claim in front

of that prestigious body of polio authorities?

 

Around 1942 Klenner1s wife suffered bleeding gums and her dentist

recommended pulling out all her teeth. Dr. Klenner thought that solution too

Draconian and remembered reading about research using vitamin C to cure

chimpanzees with a similar problem. He gave her several injections of the

vitamin and the bleeding stopped. Soon, after, this dramatic result

encouraged him to try vitamin C on an obstinate man who was near death from

viral pneumonia. Klenner described this seminal experience in a 1953 paper

3The Use of Vitamin C as an Antibiotic2:

 

3Our interest with vitamin C against the virus organism began ten years ago

in a modest rural home. Here a patient who was receiving symptomatic

treatment for virus pneumonia had suddenly developed cynosis [sic:

cyanosis]. He refused hospitalization for supportive oxygen therapy. X-Ray

had not been considered because of its dubious value and because the nearest

department equipped to give such treatment was 69 miles distant. Two grams

of vitamin C was given intramuscularly with the hope that the anaerobic

condition existing in the tissues would be relieved by the catalytic action

of vitamin C acting as a gas transport aiding cellular respiration. This was

an old idea; the important factor being that it worked. Within 30 minutes

after giving the drug (which was carried in my medical bag for the treatment

of diarrhea in children) the characteristic breathing and slate-like color

had cleared. Returning six hours later, at eight in the evening, the patient

was found sitting over the edge of his bed enjoying a late dinner. Strangely

enough his fever was three degrees less than it was at 2 p.m. that same

afternoon. This sudden change in the condition of the patient led us to

suspect that vitamin C was playing a role of far greater significance than

that of a simple respiratory catalyst. A second injection of one gram of

vitamin C was administered, by the same route, on this visit and then

subsequently at six hour intervals for the next three days. This patient was

clinically well after 36 hours of chemotherapy. From this casual observation

we have been able to assemble sufficient clinical evidence to prove

unequivocally that vitamin C is the antibiotic of choice in the handling of

all types of virus diseases. Furthermore it is a major adjuvant in the

treatment of all other infectious diseases.2

 

Again this paper is quoted at length to allow readers to judge for

themselves whether or not the author made this up or deluded himself in some

way. From 1943 through 1947 Dr. Klenner reported successful treatment of 41

more cases of viral pneumonia using massive doses of vitamin C. From these

cases he learned what dosage and route of administration ‹ intravenously,

intramuscularly, or orally ‹ was best for each patient. Dr. Klenner gave

these details in a February 1948 paper published in the Journal of Southern

Medicine and Surgery entitled 3Virus Pneumonia and Its Treatment with

Vitamin C2. This article was the first of Dr. Klenner1s twenty-eight

(through 1974) scientific publications.

 

Klenner realized, of course, that vitamin C1s effectiveness with viral

pneumonia opened up the possibility of curing other viral diseases. 3With a

great deal of enthusiasm,2 in Klenner1s phrase, he tried its effectiveness

with all of the childhood diseases, particularly measles. By the spring of

1948, when a measles epidemic came to Reidsville, Klenner was so confident

of vitamin C1s efficacy with these diseases that he devised what would

ordinarily be an outrageous experiment with his two little daughters. He had

them play with children known to be in the contagious phase of measles. When

the usual syndrome of measles had developed and his daughters were obviously

sick, vitamin C was started. Again Klenner1s words from his 1953 paper:

 

3In this experiment it was found that 1,000 mg every four hours, by mouth,

would modify the attack. Smaller doses allowed the disease to progress. When

1,000 mg was given every 2 hours all evidence of the infection cleared in 48

hours. If the thug was then discontinued for a similar period (48 hours) the

above syndrome returned. We observed this off and on picture for thirty days

at which time the drug (vitamin C) was given 1,000 mg every 2 hours around

the clock for four days. This time the picture cleared and did not return.2

 

With this background of experiences ‹ with human beings, not experimental

animals ‹ Klenner gained confidence in and control over his vitamin C

treatment.

 

One reason he turned his attention early to treating measles was that he

knew that measle [sic: measles] viruses were about as small as polio viruses

and he hoped massive doses of vitamin C would be effective against the

dreaded Crippler. By 1948 he was ready to treat polio with vitamin C, and in

that year North Carolina suffered its worst epidemic ever ‹ 2,518 new cases.

Dr. Klenner1s hopes were realized when, as has been related above, he cured

sixty patients with massive frequent injections of vitamin C.

 

With seven years of experience behind him one can understand not only why

Dr. Klenner had the nerve to speak up on June 10, 1949 but why he

undoubtedly felt morally obligated to do so.

 

After 1949 polio epidemics continued to take their terrible toll. The peak

year for The Crippler in the U.S. was 1952 ‹ 57,628 cases. During the 1950s

isolated doctors around the world tried Klenner1s cure. Those who used

vitamin C at doses below those recommended by Klenner reported no benefit;

those who followed his dosages reported good results. Dr. H. Bauer of the

University of Switzerland Clinic, Basel in 1952 reported benefits to his

polio patients with 10 to 20 grams of vitamin C per day. Dr. Edward Greer,

using doses in Klenner1s recommended range of 50 to 80 grams per day,

recorded in 1955 good clinical results with five serious cases of polio. Dr.

Abram Hoffer recalls that a controlled study, conducted in Great Britain in

the late 50s with 70 young polio victims, confirmed Klenner1s cure. All

those given vitamin C recovered completely, while a significant number of

those not given vitamin C suffered some permanent damage. (This study was

not published because of the success of the polio vaccines.) Dr. Klenner

himself reported that he received scores of letters from doctors in the U.S.

and Canada corroborating his striking results. Some of the letters described

how they cured their own children, others, how the doctors had cured

themselves.

 

What kind of reception did Dr. Klenner1s discoveries receive from the

medical establishment? There are two references to Klenner1s 1949 paper in

national, mainstream publications. The title of that paper was included in

the October 7, 1949 issue of the Current List of Medical Literature,

published by the U.S. Army Medical Library. The paper was also included in

the second edition of A Bibliography of Infantile Paralysis ‹1789-1949,

published in 1951 and prepared under the direction of the National

Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Instead of abstracting the paper in the

usual manner, it printed only Dr. Klenner1s last paragraph, which was not a

summary but an obvious rhetorical statement Klenner felt necessary to

counter the skepticism he knew would greet his quick, inexpensive cures.

Other than these two references, mainstream medical publications made no

mention of Klenner and his work. One of JAMA1s regular departments was

Current Medical Literature, in which its editors abstracted papers they

considered of special note. Many polio papers were abstracted in 1949, but

not Klenner1s.

 

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was founded in 1938 by

polio1s most famous victim, President Franklin Roosevelt, to raise money

through the March of Dimes to combat the disease. Most polio research was

funded by the National Foundation. There is no mention of Dr. Klenner1s work

or of vitamin C1s possible benefits to polio victims in any of the

Foundation1s annual reports. Not one dime was spent to prove or disprove

Klenner1s claim. Before 1949 a claim of a cure was promptly looked into and

money spent until it was proved false. But with Klenner1s claim nothing

happened.

 

It was certainly not for lack of research funds that nothing happened. John

M. Russell, in the 1960 book The Crisis in American Medicine, edited by

Marion K. Sanders, described the glut and waste of money for medical

research in the l950s. Russell points out that the public clamor for a cure

for polio was so great that in 1954 Congress appropriated $1,000,000

specifically earmarked for polio research. It turned out that there was so

much polio money floating around that the recipient of this largess, the

U.S. Public Health Service, classified such unlikely diseases as hepatitis

as 3poliolike2 so that none of this money would have to be returned to the

U.S. taxpayer.

 

Five International Poliomyelitis Congresses were convened every three years

from 1948 to 1960 to deal with the polio epidemics around the world. In all

of the voluminous reports of these conferences there is no reference to

Klenner or to vitamin C. Only the first congress dealt briefly with the

possible effect of nutrition, and this was dismissed by the statement of an

expert 3that no clinical evidence is known to me which justifies an increase

in intake of vitamins beyond usual recommended allowances2.

 

Thus in 1949 the polio experts at the Annual Session of the AMA knew of

Klenner1s claim, as did the many readers of JAMA1s lead article of its

September 3 issue, the many researchers who used the National Foundation1s

Bibliography, those that kept up with the titles in the Current List of

Medical Literature, and the relatively few readers of the Journal of

Southern Medicine and Surgery. All this exposure led to no official inquiry

or follow-up of Dr. Klenner1s work by U.S. government health authorities or

the National Foundation. No one in authority anywhere stepped forward to

insist that it be checked out. The strategy of medical leaders ‹ conscious

or unconscious, planned or unplanned was clearly to ignore Dr. Klenner and

hope his claims would be forgotten.

 

It worked. Klenner1s cure never became well known and today has sunk almost

into oblivion. A synopsis of polio infection and research by Ernest Kovacs

entitled 3The Biochemistry of Poliomyelitis Viruses2, published in 1964,

makes no reference to Klenner. In 1985 Friedrick Koch and Gebhard Kock

published The Molecular Biology of Poliovirus. It contains in its opening

chapter a history of the disease, but it says nothing about Klenner, or even

about the extensive vitamin C research done by Drs. Jungeblut and Sabin with

monkeys in the 50s. It1s as though polio-vitamin C research never happened.

 

To this day it is mainstream medicine1s position that there is no cure for

polio. The Encyclopedia American quotes Richard W. Price of Memorial

Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center of New York City: 3No specific treatment is

effective once neurological involvement becomes manifest.2 A thoroughly

exasperated Klenner concluded a February 1959 paper in the Tri-State Medical

Journal with these words:

 

3Should the disease be present in the acute form, ascorbic acid given in

proper amounts around the clock, both by mouth and needle, will bring about

a rapid recovery. We believe that ascorbic acid must be given by needle in

amounts from 250 mg to 400 mg per kg body weight every 4 to 6 hours for 48

hours and then every 8 to 12 hours. The dose by mouth is the dose that can

be tolerated. To those who say that Polio is without cure, I say that they

lie. Polio in the acute form can be cured in 96 hours or less. I beg of

someone in authority to try it.2

 

Today there are areas of the world where polio vaccine is still not used and

where the incidence of polio is increasing. Polio remains The Crippler, and

the only effort of the World Health Organization is to increase vaccination.

The leading medical authorities ‹ the editors of the leading journals, the

heads of the AMA and the National Foundation, U.S. Surgeons General and the

heads of other U.S. governmental health agencies ‹ were, and are,

responsible for stonewalling for 42 years Dr. Klenner1s simple, inexpensive

cure for many viral diseases, including the dreaded polio.

 

1949 ‹ a year in medicine which will live in infamy.

 

------

 

From Journal of Orthomolecular Medicine, Volume 6, Number 2, 1991, pp.

99-103

 

[Note: Some minor punctiation irregularities have been noted and/or

corrected. - AscorbateWeb ed.]

 

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