Today is a special day because ‘we’ have submitted our review on vitamin c and covid to the journal Nutrients, which is the most widely read ‘open access’ journal in nutrition. I’m showing you the abstract below. ‘We’ as you can see are my co-authors who are widely respected scientists and emergency medicine doctors. Also, three leading professors have agreed to be the independent reviewers so we have a world-class tour de force of highly respected experts behind this.

Also, we’ve started building the website to support this campaign, which is going international, and will be called www.vitaminC4covid.com We already have hundreds of doctors worldwide who’ll sign.

It will go live once the review is ready to view as this will form the document with which to campaign for change. For example, at the sharp end we want all ICUs using vitamin C. At the public end we want the misclassification of vitamin C for covid as fake news removed and our governments to actively recommend vitamin C supplementation, as is happening for vitamin D. Switzerland is about to action this.

Today I’ve also published a blog on some of the latest evidence showing 68% less mortality in the most critically ill covid-19 patients – see https://www.patrickholford.com/blog/vitamin-c-cuts-covid-deaths-two-thirds It's a sneak preview of the wealth of evidence - 131 studies to be precise - in the review.

So far, I’ve fronted all costs, and will continue to give my time voluntarily, but the fee to publish this review is £1790 (open access journals have the furthest reach with nothing to sell so have to charge to publish) - and to build the website is £900 – total £2,690. Once the website is up we’ll have a proper Just Giving and/or PayPal portal to pay but, for now, if you’d be willing to make a ‘seed’ donation to get things going please let us know now how much you are willing to pledge by emailing ‘vitaminC4UK@gmail.com’. Also, if you have spare time and skills that might be useful please let us know as well. We’ll need a project manager if you’d really like to get your teeth stuck in and a 'moderator' to check credentials of those who sign as a health professional - eg doctor/nutritionist etc.

Linus Pauling put the C in Colds. We are going to put the C in Covid. Thank you immensely for any support you can give. I'll be back in touch as soon as the website in live so you can share it far and wide.

Wishing you the best of health, Patrick

Review - Vitamin C – an Adjunctive Therapy for Respiratory Infection, Sepsis and COVID-19 - Patrick Holford1,* Anitra C. Carr2, Thomas H Jovic3 4, Stephen R Ali3 4, Iain S Whitaker3 4, Paul E Marik5, A. David Smith6

1       Institute for Optimum Nutrition, Ambassador House, Paradise Road, TW9 1SQ Richmond, UK;

2       Nutrition in Medicine Research Group, Department of Pathology & Biomedical Science, University of Otago, Christchurch, P.O. Box 4345, Christchurch 8140, New Zealand.

3       Reconstructive Surgery & Regenerative Medicine Research Group, Institute of Life Sciences, Swansea University Medical School, Swansea University, SA28PY Swansea, UK;

4       Welsh Centre for Burns & Plastic Surgery, Morriston Hospital, SA66NL Swansea, UK

5       Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, Eastern Virginia Medical School, Norfolk, VA 23507, USA.

6       Department of Pharmacology, University of Oxford, Oxford OX1 3QT, United Kingdom.

Abstract: There are limited proven therapies for the treatment of COVID-19. Vitamin C’s antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and immunomodulating effects, make it a potential therapeutic candidate, both for the prevention and amelioration of COVID-19 infection, and as an adjunctive therapy in the critical care of COVID-19, supporting anti-inflammatory treatment. This literature review focuses on vitamin C deficiency in respiratory infections including COVID-19; the mechanism of action in infectious disease and adrenal function supporting the anti-inflammatory actions of glucocorticosteroids: its role in preventing and treating colds and pneumonia and its role in treating sepsis and COVID-19. The evidence to date indicates that oral vitamin C (2-8g/d) may reduce incidence and duration of respiratory infections and intravenous vitamin C (2-24g/d) has been shown to reduce mortality, Intensive Care Unit and hospital stays, time on mechanical ventilation in severe respiratory infections. Further trials are urgently warranted. Given the favourable safety profile and low cost of vitamin C, and frequency of vitamin C deficiency in respiratory infections it may be worthwhile testing patients’ vitamin C status and treating accordingly with intravenous use within ICUs and orally with doses between 2 and 8g/day in hospitalised and infected persons.