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The Origin of the 42-Year ( Now 65 years) Stonewall of Vitamin C

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http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/199x/landwehr-r-j_orthomol_med-1991-v6-n2\

-p99.htm

 

Now, 65 year old stonewall of information and still

counting. F.

 

 

The Origin of the 42-Year Stonewall of Vitamin C

Robert Landwehr 1

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:

 

“Dr. 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.”

 

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

hearing relevant comments of the world’s 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. Klenner’s remarks.

 

The empirical, clinical basis for Klenner’s statement

is found in his paper “The Treatment of Poliomyelitis

and Other Virus Diseases with Vitamin C”, published in

the July 1949 issue of the Journal of Southern

Medicine and Surgery. On pages 211-212 he writes:

 

“In 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 ‘simple 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.’ (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.

 

“The 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.

 

“For 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 “C” 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.

 

“Two 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.”

 

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 “The Vitamin and Massage Treatment for Acute

Poliomyelitis”, appearing in the Journal of Southern

Medicine and Surgery in August, 1952.

 

One of the reasons why Klenner’s 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 Jungeblut’s results even

though he consulted Jungeblut during the course of the

experiments. It seemed to be a fair trial, and Sabin’s

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 Klenner’s 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 “The Use of Vitamin

C as an Antibiotic”:

 

“Our 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.”

 

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 “Virus Pneumonia and Its

Treatment with Vitamin C”. This article was the first

of Dr. Klenner’s twenty-eight (through 1974)

scientific publications.

 

Klenner realized, of course, that vitamin C’s

effectiveness with viral pneumonia opened up the

possibility of curing other viral diseases. “With a

great deal of enthusiasm,” in Klenner’s 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 C’s 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 Klenner’s

words from his 1953 paper:

 

“In 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.”

 

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. Klenner’s 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 Klenner’s

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 Klenner’s 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 Klenner’s 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. Klenner’s discoveries

receive from the medical establishment? There are two

references to Klenner’s 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. Klenner’s

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 JAMA’s 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 Klenner’s.

 

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was

founded in 1938 by polio’s 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. Klenner’s work or of vitamin C’s

possible benefits to polio victims in any of the

Foundation’s annual reports. Not one dime was spent to

prove or disprove Klenner’s claim. Before 1949 a claim

of a cure was promptly looked into and money spent

until it was proved false. But with Klenner’s 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 “poliolike” 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 “that no clinical evidence is known to me

which justifies an increase in intake of vitamins

beyond usual recommended allowances”.

 

Thus in 1949 the polio experts at the Annual Session

of the AMA knew of Klenner’s claim, as did the many

readers of JAMA’s lead article of its September 3

issue, the many researchers who used the National

Foundation’s 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. Klenner’s 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. Klenner’s cure never became well known and

today has sunk almost into oblivion. A synopsis of

polio infection and research by Ernest Kovacs entitled

“The Biochemistry of Poliomyelitis Viruses”, 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. It’s as though polio-vitamin

C research never happened.

 

To this day it is mainstream medicine’s 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: “No specific treatment

is effective once neurological involvement becomes

manifest.” A thoroughly exasperated Klenner concluded

a February 1959 paper in the Tri-State Medical Journal

with these words:

 

“Should 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.”

 

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. Klenner’s 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.]

 

HTML Revised 22 March, 2003.

Corrections and formatting © 1999-2003 AscorbateW

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