Vitamin C and Quackery

In Medical Tribune for 30 March 1989 there is an editorial
with the title "Quackery Most Heinous," containing the following
sentences: “Such devices as electromagnetic cots and machines
that deliver 'wound healing' ozone do not sound like generators
of hope, any more than massive doses of vitamin C. 'But let's
face it,' said Wallace Sampson, M.D., cochief of the antiquackery
panel of the National Council Against Health Fraud (NCAHF) and
head of California's AIDS Fraud Task Force, 'AIDS is an entirely
new ballgame. Much of what would be quackery in any other situation
is tolerated with AIDS.'"

As one of the principal supporters of the use of massive doses
of vitamin C for the prevention and treatment of many diseases,
including the common cold, influenza, heart disease, and cancer,

I resent the implication that the use of these massive doses of
vitamin C for any diseases other than AIDS is quackery. The
evidence about the value of vitamin C has been presented by my
associate Dr. Ewan Cameron and his collaborators, including me,
in many articles, beginning in 1972, and especially in two books,
“Cancer and Vitamin C" (1979) by Ewan Cameron and me, and my book
“How to Live Longer and Feel Better," (1986). The medical profession
as a whole has been rather slow to make use of massive doses of
vitamin C, as an adjunct to appropriate conventional therapy, in
the treatment of disease. I hope that this situation will be
rectified before long. There is also a significant amount of
information that very high doses of vitamin C have considerable
value in the treatment of AIDS.

Any physician who writes to me requesting them will be sent,

without charge, copies of these two books.

Linus Pauling
Palo Alto, CA