In the aftermath of a debate over a mask mandate last October, Bismarck City Commissioner Mark Splonskowski became the target of some pretty harsh criticism for comments he made about vitamin D. But does a new study suggest those critics might want to apologize?
Rather than a mask mandate, Splonskowski suggested that perhaps another approach should be taken— to recommend wearing a mask, trying to social distance, and to take vitamin D. By the response from his critics, you’d have thought Splonskowski had suggested some backroom pharmaceutical off the black market, smuggled in from the southern border. The criticism was really quite silly.
What makes their response even sillier is that these same critics seemed to speak from a holier than thou place in the COVID-19 debate— as if there’s a correlation between mask usage and number of new cases. Newsflash— there’s not.
At the time Splonskowski made his comments, there was information indicating that a large percentage of those with COVID-19 had vitamin D deficiencies. Were his comments really as irrational as his critics made them out to be?
A new study at the University of Chicago Medicine further suggests they weren’t:
“A new research study at the University of Chicago Medicine has found that when it comes to COVID-19, having vitamin D levels above those traditionally considered sufficient may lower the risk of infection, especially for Black people…
“This research is an expansion of an earlier study showing that a vitamin D deficiency (less than 20 ng/ml) may raise the risk of testing positive for COVID-19. In the current study, those results were further supported, finding that individuals with a vitamin D deficiency had a 7.2% chance of testing positive for the virus. A separate study recently found that more than 80% of patients diagnosed with COVID-19 were vitamin D deficient.”
Admittedly, research on the issue of vitamin D in relation to COVID-19 is ongoing. But does that make Splonskowski’s comments irresponsible and irrational? I’d say not anymore so than the moving of goalposts we’ve seen from the CDC over the course of the last year. In fact, Splonskowski might have made more sense, not less. After all, vitamin D is a necessity to our overall health.
If these critics were honest with us, they’d admit that their disdain for Mark Splonskowski has almost nothing to do with his comments on vitamin D. As has become typical of COVID-19, it has everything to do with politics. Of course, they’ll never acknowledge that. Nor is there an ice cube’s chance in Hell of them ever apologizing for it either.
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Sources:
- McFeely blog: Bismarck commissioner falsely pitches vitamin D as ‘scientifically proven’ way to prevent COVID deaths | INFORUM
- Study suggests high vitamin D levels may protect against COVID-19, especially for Black people – UChicago Medicine
- https://www.uchicagomedicine.org/forefront/coronavirus-disease-covid-19/vitamin-d-deficiency-may-raise-risk-of-getting-covid19
- https://academic.oup.com/jcem/advance-article/doi/10.1210/clinem/dgaa733/5934827
