Benefits of Vitamin D for Covid-19

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Madam Speaker, the good news is the COVID pandemic is kind of under control. Nevertheless, we still have about 250 people a day who die of COVID and over 1 million people have died in this country.

I think one of the failures of the public health establishment and the medical establishment is the failure to educate the public about the benefits of vitamin D. Researchers found that if you have inadequate vitamin D levels, defined as under 200 nanograms per milliliter, you are 11 times as likely to die of the disease.

Can you imagine how many lives would have been saved if we tested for vitamin D and everybody had adequate vitamin D in their blood?

The public health establishment failed us by not educating the public enough on vitamin D, and it is time we stepped it up, even though it looks like we are near the end of the pandemic. And the medical establishment ought to always test for vitamin D with people who are at risk for this disease, particularly people with darker skin, and particularly people who are a little heavy. It is very important to test for vitamin D.

I know the medical establishment feels that they might not get reimbursed quite enough from the insurance companies, but I will tell you, people in the medical establishment, and I am talking about the administrators, in particular, who are making these judgments, ought to put profit aside for a second and make sure that we get these tests on people, because if they come under 20 nanograms, they are greatly at risk for dying.

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