Nobel Prize winner Gregg Semenza tallies tenth retraction (2023)

Now, a gram vs. milligram would be between 2C and 3C (or 3X on the decimal scale) so it can be described on a homeopathic scale, but then again, full-strength of 0X or 0C can also be on that scale so I don't think this is the interpretation you mean.

FWIW, "Mega-dose vitamin C in treatment of the common cold: a randomised controlled trial" at https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.5694/j.1326-5377.... uses 1g and 3g doses and refers to the 30mg dose as "placebo". It's apparently hard to get the taste right with truly homeopathic doses.

> many studies not seeing effects are not actually giving people gram-megadoses

Pauling is seen as a quack when it comes to vitamin C because he claimed it could help treat all sort of things; for colds, for cancer, for AIDS treatment, for asthma, for mononucleosis, and for far, far more, as he uncritically lists every single positive connection to vitamin C in his 1987 book "How to live longer and feel better". https://archive.org/search?query=%22How+to+Live+Longer+and+F...

That makes it hard to know what studies you refer to, and certainly there are studies which did use gram-megadoses and failed to replicate or find support Pauling's findings, like:

Anderson TW et al, in "Vitamin C and the common cold: a double-blind trial", Canadian Medical Association Journal (1972) used 1-gram megadoses, with 4-gram megadoses at the onset of colds. "It was found that in terms of the average number of colds and days of sickness per subject the vitamin group experienced less illness than the placebo group, but the differences were smaller than have been claimed and were statistically not significant". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1940935/pdf/can...

Pauling's original study, with a smaller population and shorter time frame, suggested the benefits were far more significant, so should have been visible in that Canadian study, and that's only one of several >= 1 gram studies.

> Maybe it’s not double nobel laureate Pauling who was so wrong that he has pretty much become a quack in popular knowledge, but the fields of nutrition and perhaps medical science that are shoddy.

Do you think double-Nobel-Prize-winner Pauling was right that megadoses (10g) of vitamin C could treat cancer?

Because that was tested. "Failure of High-Dose Vitamin C (Ascorbic Acid) Therapy to Benefit Patients with Advanced Cancer — A Controlled Trial", https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm197909273011303 with 10 g per day.

Oh, but wait - Pauling then said vitamin C only worked on cancer patients who had not received already had chemotherapy.

Nope, still not the case: "High-Dose Vitamin C versus Placebo in the Treatment of Patients with Advanced Cancer Who Have Had No Prior Chemotherapy — A Randomized Double-Blind Comparison", https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejm198501173120301 with 10 g daily.

Oh, but the problem is the Mayo Clinic doesn't follow Pauling's protocol, and didn't continue treatment beyond 75 days. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1925592 .

When should other people stop listening to Pauling's claims?

So Pauling and Cameron did their own study to support the claim ... which was criticized for the lack of blinding and poor selection of controls. (ibid).

> it’s quite well known that marketing departments of the pharmaceutical industry have a lot of time on their hands to write those articles that benefit them

It's quite well known that people in the pharmaceutical industry, and their friends and family, also get colds, cancer, and more. Do you really think they are hiding a cure from their co-workers, friends, and family?

It's also well-known that the supplement industry makes billions of dollars, among other things, from actual homeopathy, and this money gives them lots of time to write those articles that benefit them.

Agreed about Josephson!

Not quite, experiments already showed the speed of light was fix independent of earths motion before Einstein did anything. 1887: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michelson–Morley_experiment

Which is why his ideas caught on so quickly, they where an elegant solution for a well known experimental result.

"...It seems probable that most of the grand underlying principles [of physics] have been firmly established and that further advances are to be sought chiefly in the rigorous application of these principles to all the phenomena which come under our notice. It is here that the science of measurement shows its importance — where quantitative work is more to be desired than qualitative work. An eminent physicist remarked that the future truths of physical science are to be looked for in the sixth place of decimals."

Note that quote is from 7 years after his experiment. Michelson did not believe his own result! The idea that he was discovered was correct, was so utterly weird and difficult to understand, that the possibility of it being true simply did not even occur to him, or most of anybody for that matter! He actually thought that his failure to measure the speed of light was related to instrumentation or precision, and he would repeatedly pursue various efforts to try to correct his mistake, which was not a mistake at all!

Basically he showed that (from the perspective of the time) 2+2=5. Naturally he rejected this without even really considering it, while Einstein not only accepted that it might be true, but then spent years working out an explanation for why! Had Einstein been wrong, it would have looked like the odd behavior of a man battling with his sanity, even more so given that much of his key research came while he was working as a patent inspector, no university of the time being willing to take him on as staff!

> Pauling is seen as a quack when it comes to vitamin C

Pauling has been portrayed as a nobel-laureate-gone-quack / example of "Nobel disease" in pop science media many times. Often by gullible people who are not actually scientists but more science(tm) promoters like podcasters. They don't usually limit it to the Vitamin C advocacy, but seem to like telling a story of a highly intelligent person "gone quack".

> "Mega-dose vitamin C in treatment of the common cold: a randomised controlled trial"

I don't have access to this but will check later.

> Anderson TW et al, in "Vitamin C and the common cold: a double-blind trial",

I've seen this before and quickly checked again (don't remember everything). They describe and show in Tables II and III a 30% marked-as-significant reduction in confinement to house, so apparently the severity of relevant cold symptoms is indeed strongly decreased. They say themselves that Pauling based his claims on studies showing 45% and 60% respectively (which you have not linked to for some reason). Even 30% is still well over the significance-and-usefulness threshold in my eyes at least, particularly if it comes from a study quite open about intending to "debunk" the perceived quackery. I would figure that the real number is somewhere in-between the advocates and these "debunkers". (Btw, in the discussion they made a weird 70s-boomer claim that consuming four ounces of vegetable and fruit juice per day is sufficient to prevent Vitamin C deficiency, and that 30mg Vitamin C per day is the basic requirement. Also, that they could not (or did not try to) really eradicate the confound of other health measures like other supplements taken is one of the typical problems with nutritional studies.)

About the cancer claims (which I agree should be treated with utmost suspicion, just like any cancer treatment): While I don't have strong stakes in the game to either support or "debunk" it, less than 75 days does seem to be on the short side for a serious disease for me. I wonder how this compares to other cancer medication studies with more profit in the game.

> It's also well-known that the supplement industry makes billions of dollars, among other things, from actual homeopathy, and this money gives them lots of time to write those articles that benefit them.

The supplements industry spends much more of that time and money on fake reviews on Amazon and other social media marketing. Seems to be much more effective for their consumer base than a long-form wikipedia article. Since the profits of the pharmaceutical industry for newly developed patented products are much higher, I guess they have some more money on their hands to hire a few "scientists" to write convincing-sounding long-form articles for pay.

> It's quite well known that people in the pharmaceutical industry, and their friends and family, also get colds, cancer, and more. Do you really think they are hiding a cure from their co-workers, friends, and family?

People in the pharmaceutical industry's marketing departments are hired and paid for writing supportive articles. I bet they are also made believe that they are doing the right thing(tm).

I first noticed suspiciously professionally written "debunk" Wikipedia articles during the Séralini affair - whatever you want to think about it; the time frame in which highly polished professional articles popped up was remarkable. Even otherwise pro-industry centrist-conservative media here got suspicious and wrote about potentially industry-written wikipedia articles. If you need any further convincing who writes WP when money is in the game, check out the article about the "well-recognized musician" Justin Bieber.

I'm not sure why this overall topic triggers so much. A bit more on topic again: Science had very obvious issues with information overload for long time and unfortunately this allows bad players and COIs to exploit the system (recommended reading, also for OPs link: "Science Fictions" by Stuart Ritchie). These developments are out in the open for everyone who is willing to see them. Particularly in recent years. This needs fixing, seriously; and I hope you see it and agree with this, and think along for solutions (as the solution will most likely be technological).

(The "homeopathic dosage" wasn't meant literally.)