Dr. Klenner presented over 20 papers outlining his life's work with Vitamin
C. In 1949, he cured 60 out of 60 polio cases. It was probably Claus Washington
Jungeblut, M.D. that first give Klenner the idea to employ Vitamin C for polio
though he may deny it. Jungeblut published in 1935, his idea that ascorbic
acid, Vitamin C, could inactivate bacterial and viral pathogens along with
their toxins. Some of his earliest work was with bacterial toxins, such as
tetanus, diphtheria, and staph toxins which he found could be inactivated by
Vitamin C along with the polio, hepatitis and herpes viruses. Irwine Stone, the
biochemist writes: "Within two years after the discovery of ascorbic acid,
Jungeblut showed that ascorbic acid would inactivate the virus of
poliomyelitis. This was followed, in 1936-1937, in rapid succession by other
workers showing similar inactivation of other viruses: by Holden et al., using
the herpes virus; by Kligler and Bernkopf, on the vaccina virus, by Lagenbusch
and Enderling, with the virus of hoof-and-mouth disease; by Amato, on the
rabies virus; by Lominski, using bacteriophage; and by Lojkin and Martin, with
the tobacco mosaic disease virus. Thus, at this early date it was established
that ascorbic acid had the potential of being a wide-spectrum antiviral agent."
After Jungeblut's well known notoriety in the 1930s and 40s in Polio
research, he seemed to disappear into anonymity along with all the research of
Vitamin C as an antimicrobial. This was mainly due to the efforts of the
famous, Dr. Albert B. Sabin. Dr. Sabin was the champion at this time in live
polio virus vaccine research. He attempted to repeat Jungeblut's
groundbreaking work showing that polio infected monkeys benefited by Vitamin C
administration. Sabin could not reproduce Jungeblut's success which was later
evaluated by Jungeblut, himself, as Sabin using far too low of dosages on
monkeys, who were far sicker than his in the lab trials. Sabin gave one single
small dose of 400 mg to only one animal and for only one day. Imagine giving a
similar dosage of one of our current antibiotics and hoping for a cure?
Impossible. Sabin's resulting negative published results effectively stifled
all future work with Vitamin C in the context as an anti-viral compound. Sabin
went on to perfect a live virus vaccine, but in the meantime, he came into
conflict with Dr. Salk who worked at vaccinating polio from the dead virus
perspective. As with Jungeblut's Vitamin C research, Sabin did everything in
his power to condemn the work of Salk. He was quoted of being very bombastic
and intolerant of new ideas. Here we see how medical history is such a fickle
maiden. Salk would mostly have been stopped in his tracks from further work on
a dead virus vaccine had it not been for Basil O'Connor, an appointee by
Franklin D. Roosevelt. O'Connor was in charge of the goverment grant purse
strings in stimulating polio research. Salk and O'Connor met by happenstance
and O'Connor was impressed with this young researcher, Jonas Salk! He believed
in Salk's work and was a nonfliching supporter of Salk and powerful enough to
defy Sabin. In the end. Salk was allowed to complete his successful polio dead
virus vaccine merely because he had friends in high places who never stopped
funneling money to his lab! Just imagine what might have happened if O'Connor
had met and liked Dr. Jungeblut or Dr. Klenner!
Dr.Klenner in the late 1940s took Jungeblut's work a bit further by
administering 20-40 grams of Vitamin C per day with stunning results. Andrew W.
Saul writes: "Curiously, the only report on vitamin C and polio that Klenner
had at that time read was Sabin's negative one. Klenner writes that his own
"observations of the action of ascorbic acid on virus diseases were made
independently of any knowledge of previous studies using vitamin C on virus
pathology, except for the negative report of Sabin after treating Rhesus
monkeys experimentally infected with the poliomyelitis virus." Then he reviewed
the literature, finding "an almost unbelievable record of such studies. The
years of labor in animal experimentation, the cost in human effort and in
grants, and the volumes written, make it difficult to understand how so many
investigators could have failed in comprehending the one thing that would have
given positive results a decade ago. This one thing was the size of the dose of
vitamin C employed and the frequency of its administration. In all fairness it
must be said that Jungeblut noted on several occasions that he attributed his
failure of results to the possibility that the strength of his injectable 'C'
was inadequate. It was he who unequivocally said that ''vitamin C can
truthfully be designated as the antitoxic and antiviral vitamin.'" And so went
Dr. Klenner groundbreaking work, who inspired a few other renegades such as Dr.
Robert Cathcart, Dr. W. Bellfield, Thomas Levy, but few others.
doug
