A Moneychanger Book Review

Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases and Toxins

by Dr. Thomas E. Levy, MD, JD

Curing the Incurable: Vitamin C, Infectious Diseases, and Toxins by Thomas E. Levy, M.D., J.D. Henderson, Nevada; Livon Books, 2002. 444 pages with 1,200 references to scientific literature.


Curing the IncurableAfter World War II polio epidemics swept the United States, leaving adults and especially children paralyzed or maimed. The disease was deadly, the treatment merely supportive, and the cure non-existent. During the 1948 epidemic Dr. Frederick Klenner (1907-1984), a general practitioner in Reidsville, North Carolina treated sixty children with polio by massive dosages of Vitamin C, and cured all sixty completely within three days. On 10 June 1949 Klenner summarized his work before the Annual Session of the American Medical Association in Atlantic City. His summary was reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Klenner remarked:

It might be interesting to learn how poliomyelitis was treated in Reidsville, N.C., during the 1948 epidemic. In the past seven years, virus infections have been treated and cured in a period of seventy-two (72) hours by the employment of massive frequent injections of ascorbic acid, or vitamin C. I believe that if vitamin C in these massive doses—6,000 to 20,000 milligrams in a twenty-four hour period—is given to these patients with poliomyelitis none will be paralyzed and there will be no further maiming or epidemics of poliomyelitis. (Page 50)

Any observer would jump to the conclusion that every doctor in the United States immediately adopted this remarkably effective therapy, but that observer would be wrong. Klenner’s vitamin C treatment cured sixty out of sixty polio cases completely, with zero paralysis, or crippling, yet the information went unnoticed and unused by the medical profession, and polio continued to ravage the country until vaccines became available in 1955 and 1957. Surely this is one of the 20th century’s greatest tragedies, one all the more poignant and incomprehensible if you grew up as I did, a child under the constant shadow of deadly polio epidemics.

Klenner continued to use vitamin C in his practice as an antibiotic against viruses, bacteria, and a detoxifying agent. He gave as much as 300,000 mg (30 grams) per day of neutral pH sodium ascorbate. In 28 medical papers he described vitamin C therapy applied to over 30 diseases, including multiple sclerosis. Klenner’s maxim was, the patient should “get large doses of vitamin C in all pathological conditions while the physician ponders the diagnosis.”

SCURVY: VITAMIN C DEFICIENCY

Scurvy, the acute deficiency of vitamin C, was described by the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates (460 BC - 380 BC). It especially afflicted sailors because on long ocean voyages they had no dietary source of vitamin C in fruits and vegetables; at sea they ate only cured meats and dried grains (salt pork and hard tack, with the occasional maggot for extra protein). In 1753 a Scottish surgeon in the British Royal Navy, James Lind, first proved scurvy could be treated with citrus fruit, although the Royal Navy did not heed his advice for decades. Beginning in the 19th century the Royal Navy added lime juice to the sailor’s daily grog (rum) ration, hence their name “limey.”

British chemist Norman Haworth first synthesized Vitamin C in 1933 and in 1937 he won a Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Hungarian physician and researcher Albert Szent-Györgyi had already identified it as the “antiscorbutic” or anti-scurvy factor. In 1937 he received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

In scurvy (Latin scorbutus, hence scorbutic and antiscorbutic) the vitamin C blood level falls to zero. The victim becomes weak and very easily prone to bleeding or hemorrhage. Mucous membranes bleed, and the skin mottles due to inward bleeding. Knees and legs swell, moving is painful, the gums become infected, and teeth loosen in their sockets. Worse, the immune system weakens so that secondary infectious diseases attack, tuberculosis or pneumonia. Oddly, scurvy sufferers may not appear undernourished and may even be overweight. They’re eating enough, just not the right foods.

Tiny doses of vitamin C will prevent and reverse scurvy, but for optimal health the human body needs much more vitamin C. Unlike all other mammals, humans, primates, guinea pigs, and bats do not produce their own vitamin C. Goats, for example, when not stressed will produce about 13,000 mg of vitamin C daily. When stressed, their bodies can crank out up to 100,000 mg. Given vitamin C’s remarkable detoxifying powers, is it any wonder that goats can eat poison ivy and smile?

Dr. Levy argues that because Vitamin C is tagged as a “vitamin,” people are blinded to the proper dosage. Vitamins are described as substances the body needs in only trace amounts, but far larger amounts of vitamin C are need for normal function, and much larger amounts to fight infectious agents or toxins. Levy repeatedly stresses that the efficacy of vitamin c therapy is a function of dosage size and duration: a lot for a long time.

“The only absolute requirements are that Vitamin C be given
1. In the right form,
2. With the proper technique,
3. in frequent enough does
4. in high enough doses
5. along with certain additional agents, and
6. for a long enough period of time.” (p 20)

Levy concludes that many researchers have found vitamin C “ineffective” because they use low doses wholly inadequate to the task, large enough to ward off scurvy but too small for therapeutic benefit against other diseases.

Levy’s book addresses vitamin C as a therapeutic agent in two ways:

  1. Against diseases cause by microorganisms, including viruses, bacteria, and other infectious organisms and
  2. Against toxins as a detoxifying agent.

Levy’s book is serious and even-handed, not a screed from a fanatic. He cites over 1,200 medical research studies, with full references. The reader needs to grasp the full implications of Klenner’s and others' work, namely, that megadoses of vitamin C are the first and most effective defense against infectious disease, the best detoxifier, and tbat large regular doses (3000+ mg daily) offer the best protection from disease. Vitamin C is literally the keystone of the immune system. 

VITAMIN C AGAINST VIRUSES

Dr. Levy presents reports of intravenous (IV), intramuscular (IM), and oral vitamin C administration against a long list of viral infections. Since most of these are thought to be incurable, you will be surprised. The list includes viral hepatitis both acute and chronic (Klenner cured it), measles, mumps, viral encephalitis, chickenpox, herpes (cold sore & genital), viral pneumonia, influenza (flu”, rabies, and the common cold. He even discusses successful vitamin C treatment of AIDS, and infers that vitamin C makes it both reversible and preventable, and perhaps curable.

Note that in acute diseases immediate and huge vitamin C does must be given. In some cases Klenner recommended 50,000 mg with a 20 gauge needle as fast as the patient’s cardiovascular system could take it in.

I have more reasons than Ebola for researching megadose vitamin C. On November 2013 one of our best friends in the world became ill on Sunday and suffered that cascading series of symptoms called septic shock. She died on Tuesday, 48 hours later. Eight months later her widowed husband fell suddenly ill with viral encephalitis, which kills about half of those who contract it, and often permanently damages the nervous system. Subscribers & readers pointed out to me the efficacy of Vitamin C but I could do nothing to secure it for him. 

After eleven days he came out of a coma, thank God, but the whole time he was comatose I was all sawbriars and broken glass inside, desperately wanting him to get massive doses of vitamin C into him but unable to do it. Later I read in Levy’s book that my intuition was correct, ant that “Klenner . . . reported a great deal of success in treating viral encephalitis with Vitamin C. . . Klenner termed the response that he repeatedly witnessed when treating viral encephalitis with Vitamin C as “dramatic. . . Indeed, Klenner repeatedly cured patients who were already comatose with encephalitis. , , Klenner reported on the complete cure of six cases. . .” (P. 71, 72). Now that he is recovering, I have at least convinced my friend to take large doses of liposomal vitamin C to aid that recovery.

You may know that feeling of helplessness when you as a layman come up against the world of medicine. Doctors don’t really cherish medical consultations with laymen. To mention a controversial therapy they do not know is to invite scornful contempt and the conversational equivalent of a condescending pat on the head and wave goodbye.

Therefore if you are convinced of vitamin C’s therapeutic efficacy and you want it applied in your own case if you become ill, you must clear the way beforehand. Discuss it with your doctor. Draw up documents instructing that you be given vitamin C in what dose and for how long, have it notarized, and give it to your lawyer or next of kin with instructions to present it to your attending physician and the hospital staff should you fall gravely ill. You probably won’t get it any other way.

Please note and mark well that I do not prescribe any treatment for any disease and I am not a medical doctor and therefore not competent to give medical advice. I am only telling you what I will do in my own case and my own conclusions. Remember, I may be crazy as a Betsy bug.

AGAINST AIDS

Dr. Robert Cathcart has reported treating AIDS sufferers with vitamin C. His results clearly indicate that AIDS and HIV infection are preventable and reversible conditions, and he postulates that the cure of AIDS might be possible if aggressive vitamin C therapy is continued for a long enough period of time.” P. 90. Results range from a minor symptom alleviation to complete symptom suppression. However, the Vitamin C dosage must be continued or the syndrome will reappear. 

Cathcart proposes taking vitamin C to ‘bowel tolerance,” that is, to increase the oral dosage until it gives the patient diarrhea, then cut back the dosage until the diarrhea stops. 

VITAMIN C AGAINST EBOLA?

The chief reason you are reading this article is the appearance of Ebola virus in the United States. Ebola is one of a number of hemorrhagic fever viruses, and the most virulent. Hemorrhagic means that one of the symptoms is “capillary fragility, which translates to easy bleeding.” (P. 105) The skin bleeds around the hair follicles. This is the same symptom of easy bleeding seen in scurvy. Levy finds that consistent with his theory that viral infections deplete the body’s vitamin C suddenly and speedily, so that an infectious disease is actually causing vitamin C deficiency or scurvy. “[T]he virus so rapidly and totally metabolizes and consumes all available vitamin C in the bodies of the victims that an advanced stage of scurvy is literally produced after only a few days of the disease . . . When the Vitamin C stores are rapidly depleted by large infecting doses of an aggressivevirus, the immune system gets similarly depleted and compromised.” (p. 105-106).

Concerning viral infections in general, Levy makes this bold statement: “To date, no viral infection has been demonstrated to be resistant to the proper dosing of vitamin C as classically demonstrated by Klenner.” (p. 106) Although studies of treating Ebola with vitamin C have not been done, Klenner’s work and that of others strongly implies that massive (up to 500,000 mg daily) doses would effectively treat the disease. All that also implies that the best way to overcome Ebola is never to contract the disease by taking large preventive doses of vitamin C.

VITAMIN C AGAINST NON-VIRAL INFECTIONS

Levy also reports on vitamin C therapy by Klenner and others against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus or lockjaw [sic], tuberculosis, streptococcal infections, leprosy (Mycobacterium leprae infections), typhoid fever, malaria, brucellosis (undulant fever), and trichinosis. He shows that vitamin C therapy can reverse or prevent almost all of these, and may cure them.

VITAMIN C AGAINST OTHER INFECTIOUS DISEASES

Remember that Levy is not reporting his ideas of what vitamin C therapy might do, but actual results of treatment and research studies. He documents everything. 

Vitamin C has also been used to reverse, prevent, and or cure amebic dysentery, bacillary dysentery, pseudomonas infections, Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, staphylococcal infections, and trypanosomal infections. 

VITAMIN C AS A DETOXIFIER

Often times it is not the disease that kills you, but the toxins produced by the pathological agent. Vitamin C is a powerful detoxifier and also has proven effective against a wide variety of environmental poisons.

“Vitamin C has demonstrated the ability to neutralize a wide variety of toxic substances, many of which are completed unrelated chemically. Frequently vitamin C directly interacts chemically with a given toxin to render it less toxic or nontoxic. This is known as a chemical antidote effect. However, vitamin C can also act as a physiological antidote to a toxin or poison. Such an antidote effect can result when vitamin C helps to undo or repair the damage caused by a certain toxin without having to directly interact with the toxin. . . . Furthermore, when the toxin is a chemotherapy drug, vitamin C quite often will promote the anticancer actions of that drug without increasing the drug-induced toxic effects.” (p. 211)

Dr. Levy addresses vitamin C's effectiveness against a number of specific toxins, including Ethanol, barbiturates, carbon monoxide (Klenner reversed it immediately when a patient was near death), methemoglobinema, endotoxins, mushroom poisoning, pesticides, radiation sickness, strychnine, tetanus toxin, toxic elements such as mercury, lead, chromium, arsenicals, and cadmium, and venomous snake and black widow spider bites.

WHAT ABOUT VITAMIN C OVERDOSE?

‘[V]itamin C is also one of the safest and least toxic therapies that can be administered to a patient, regardless of diagnosis. Everybody needs some vitamin C on a regular basis, and the only potential problems with vitamin C administration arise in a very limited number of clinical situations.” (P. 367) In other words, high doses of Vitamin C are safe, except in very limited caes The belief that large doses of vitamin C cause kidney stone formation is mistaken. (p. 368)

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN TO ME?

I wrote this article for two reasons. First, the threat of incurable and highly deadly Ebola into the United States makes an epidemic possible. There is no known effective treatment for Ebola, but vitamin C has been show efficacious in preventing, reversing, and curing similar viruses. That may not be much hope, but there’s nothing better on the horizon. At least by taking larger doses of vitamin C, you may be able to strengthen your immune system and boost its response to all diseases.

Second, in the last twelve months I have seen people unspeakably dear to me sicken and even die with sudden infections modern medicine was unable to treat. As for Ebola, physicians can offer only supportive care, i.e., treating the patient’s symptoms, assuring hydration, palliating—propping up pillows. “Untreatable” means they have no agent that can effectively stop and reverse the disease.

Unaccountably, given the enormous research effort since the 1930s, most of the medical profession seems ignorant and even suspicious of vitamin C’s proven history and wide application. I could go on a tirade about drug companies and government ignoring vitamin C because they can’t make a lucrative patentable drug out of it, or about physicians’ hard-headedness and the arrogant Not-Invented-Here syndrome. However, I don’t believe that applies to most doctors. Like any other artists or craftsmen, they can’t know everything and of course they don’t want to try remedies they believe ineffective. Tragically, their focus on what they already know means that the hard-to-believe but proven truth about vitamin C has a hard time penetrating their attention.

I am no physician and am not competent to proscribe any treatment or therapy for any disease. I can only tell you what I am doing for myself and my family, but I strongly recommend that you consult your health care professional before you use vitamin C or any other supplement or medication. 

  • I am taking large daily doses of liposomal vitamin C (3,000 mg or more). 
  • I am learning how to prepare IV vitamin C solutions and am writing official documents for my own treatment should I become seriously ill with an infectious disease, and 
  • I am encouraging my family and friends to research and use vitamin C.

Further reading:

The Riordan IVC Protocol for Adjunctive Cancer Care: Intravenous Ascorbate as a Chemotherapeutic and Biological Response Modifying Agent

How to Get Intravenous Vitamin C Given to a Hospitalized Patient

Preparation of Sodium Ascorbate for IV and IM Use (For Physicians Only). By Robert F. Cathcart III, M.D.

Make your own liposomal vitamin C. This form of vitamin C is supposed to deliver absorption of oral doses as effectively as IV dosage. You can buy it from LivOn Labs for about $1 per 1,000 mg dose at or off Amazon.com. You can also make your own. I Googled “making liposomal vitamin C” and got 80,400 hits, so it’s no secret.

Surprising Solution for Ebola Virus. Thomas E. Levy, 3 August 2014.


WARNING & DISCLAIMER: By publishing this material, neither The Moneychanger nor the author/interviewee recommends or endorses any specific treatment or therapy for any physical condition or disease. Neither The Moneychanger nor the author/interviewee guarantees or warrants any results from any treatment discussed, nor assumes any express or implied liability for any use to which the reader puts this information. By this interview, the interviewee does not prescribe any treatment whatsoever for anyone who is not his patient. All the information here is offered for information purposes only, subject to the reader’s own research, prudence, and judgment.


Originally published October 2014