Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2024

Floor Speech

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Chair, I rise in support of my amendment, which is an increase/decrease in prioritized money for the CDC to do a study on the effectiveness of vitamin D against COVID-19.

Vitamin D has long been associated with a healthy immune system, particularly when combating viral and respiratory infections. It is evident that maintaining adequate vitamin D levels can dramatically improve outcomes for patients who are infected with COVID.

I was incredibly disappointed during the entire COVID scare, when over a million Americans died, that the public health establishment did very little to encourage people to take vitamin D.

There are many studies out there--they vary from one to the other-- from Spain, from Harvard, from the University of Chicago. In some, they say that the chance of death can be reduced by 60 percent. In others, they say for people with adequate vitamin D levels, 2.3 percent pass away compared to 25.6 percent. In other words, you are 10 times better off with vitamin D.

In any event, the public health establishment did very little to push this. In my heart--I have read a lot of this stuff--I believe we could have cut the deaths by over 80 percent had they done it, which is why I want to require some sort of study out of the CDC to show this.

The other thing that should have been done during this COVID thing is if you went in for a checkup, you should have had your vitamin D checked. That should have been automatic. If you would have had levels, say, under 20, your doctor could have said that you are in much worse shape now and that you have to take vitamin D right away. They didn't do that, I think, because they couldn't make enough money on it and because, today, the medical establishment is too money driven.

Hopefully, if we do a study and something like this comes back, we can put our public health establishment a little bit more on the ball. I think it was an identical thing to COVID. I think it would reduce the number of deaths by over 80 percent.

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Chair, let me point out that there are many scientists in different countries who feel overwhelmingly that vitamin D would have reduced the number of deaths.

I believe, sadly, that both our research establishment and medical establishment kind of tilt toward something that will be more profitable.

If they would have gotten vitamin D out there in the almost year before vaccines were available, I think it would have saved a lot of lives, and it would have probably saved lives even after vaccines became available.

It is a mystery to me why the public health establishment does not get involved and, quite frankly, encourage people to take vitamin D well beyond the normal supplement level. You should probably take four or five times the amount of the supplement.

In any event, it is frustrating it wasn't done. It is frustrating we wouldn't check vitamin D levels when the cost to check them is, from what I could tell, if you go through a mail order thing, like, 50 bucks to check.

Nevertheless, it wasn't worthwhile for the medical establishment to do that. I don't see any harm in doing a study, and it could result in a massive benefit.

Let me also point out that, disproportionately, people of color were dying from this disease, and a lot of people feel the reason they were dying far in excess of the population as a whole was because people with darker skin don't have as much vitamin D. In particular, it would have helped people of color.

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Mr. GROTHMAN. Mr. Chair, I have nothing more to say other than that I hope the amendment passes, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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