Dear Editor:
RE: Vitamin supplementation (Letter to the Editor and the Editor’s note), July 23.
The editor’s note regarding my article on vitamin D3 suggests that I overlooked the aspect of causation. Actually, conducting a randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled study to show causation would be unethical and immoral.
In order to conduct such a study, vitamin D3 would have to be completely withheld for the control subjects. Such a human trial violates the Nuremberg Code and the Declaration of Helsinki which spelled out the guidelines for clinical trials.
Side-stepping biomedical responsible conduct of research is an abuse of human rights. The recent scientific article (Biesalski, 2020) is one of the many authoritative papers showing immunological and cardiovascular benefits of vitamin D3.
Failure to address the benefits of vitamin D3 in fighting COVID-19 is a major shortfall of public health.
John Scott,
Fergus
*Editor’s note: The purpose of last week’s note was not to suggest the letter writer overlooked causation, it was simply to stress that there is no evidence showing vitamin D can help people exposed to COVID-19. To date, to the best of our knowledge, that remains the case.