By Hilary Butler
Three H1N1 deaths (a 53 year old man in Waikato hospital, who had no pre-existing health problems, and two Auckland men, 29 and 57), reported on page 5, in this morning’s New Zealand Herald, 20 August 2010, comes just two days after the TV3 60 Minutes documentary called “Living Proof”, which tracked the obstructive responses of these same Auckland and Waikato Hospital ICU specialists, who sat and watched Allan Smith survive what the family had been told was “certain death” from H1N1 and hairy cell leukaemia.
The Smith family spoke out on 60 Minutes about their experiences, in the hope that their story will result in this potentially life-saving and safe treatment being initiated as a primary therapy in all hospitals.
How many New Zealand families can afford a specialist public health lawyer, to come to a hospital to force doctors to grudgingly administer intravenous vitamin C, instead of turning off life support? Why are the wishes of families not respected, when the only outcome the doctors had to “offer” was death?
So often we hear of people with terminal conditions where doctors offer completely untested treatments, on the basis that “it just might work.” Why then, the resistance to giving a dying man, intravenous vitamin C?
Will New Zealanders continue to die of H1N1 unnecessarily, because the medical profession continues to ignore medical literature in their own data bases, and the evidence in front of their own eyes?
These latest deaths in the two hospitals featured in 60 Minutes “Living Proof”, indicate that the medical profession continues to refuse to listen, watch or learn.
Why do doctors continue to ignore medical studies conducted four years ago, which showed that vitamin C was the treatment of choice for white-out lung in influenza? Medical literature also shows that when faced with a potential death situation, giving the patient a high dose vitamin C protocol reduces respiratory failure and ventilator-dependence. It would seem that the medical profession also continues to also ignore other medically promising non patented treatments including: N-acetyl cysteine as well as other nutrient mixtures ,as well as reviews describing the potential use of vitamin C to reduce illness and death in pandemic influenza.
Farmer Allan Smith’s three month long hospital treatment will have cost the taxpayer a huge sum of money, whereas correctly administered intravenous vitamin C treatment of H1N1 from the start of hospitalisation, would have been a tiny fraction of that cost. 60 Minutes “Living Proof” suggests that had the hospitals used the vitamin C correctly from the start, Mr Smith might have been discharged, completely well, within two weeks.
That Mr Smith’s treatment was unnecessarily hindered in such a dramatically obstructive manner as shown on 60 Minutes “Living Proof”, and Campbell Live’s subsequent interview of lawyer Mai Chen, is a travesty of patient’s rights.
Most importantly, eight H1N1 deaths after Mr Smith’s survival, could possibly have been prevented had those families been voluntarily offered the option of intravenous Vitamin C treatment. The implications of these issues raised by 60 Minutes “Living Proof” and John Campbell’s subsequent interview, should raise serious questions in the minds of the media, politicians and the public.
On behalf of many concerned New Zealand citizens, Hilary Butler, 25 Harrisville Road, Tuakau, 2121. 092368990.