Most Animals Can Harbor But Are Not Sickened By Coronavirus Because They Internally Produce Vitamin C 24/7

Vaccine Could Make Coronavirus Infections Worse

The animal kingdom is largely immune from the ravages of coronaviruses, even the deadly one that is now infecting human populations.  There is strong circumstantial as well as scientific evidence that wild mammals exhibit immunity from coronaviruses and viruses in general because most animals internally produce vitamin C.

For example, the vast majority of civets (small cat-like animals) both in the wild and on farms are free of coronavirus infection, though they are carriers of the virus.

While humans around the globe wonder if the human species is about to experience a massive culling by an unstoppable and newly mutated coronavirus for which no one has antibodies against (except individuals who have already been infected), a striking fact is that wild and domesticated animals (rodents, poultry, dogs, cats, pigs) harbor this respiratory coronavirus but don’t develop life-threatening pneumonia and succumb to infection.

Great apes who have lost ability to secrete vitamin C from their liver are vulnerable to being killed off by virusesAfrican Green Monkeys exhibit a range of symptoms including death when exposed to coronavirus.  But some monkeys exposed to coronavirus exhibit no symptoms.

A contradiction in the animal lab

A seeming contradiction to the idea that vitamin C protects from coronavirus infection is observed in the animal lab.  Due to a genetic flaw that is also universal in humans, non-human primate monkeys don’t internally produce vitamin C yet don’t exhibit severe clinical disease and mortality as observed in coronavirus-infected humans. Curing the Incurable: ... Levy, MD JD Thomas E Best Price: $22.60 Buy New $18.89 (as of 08:55 UTC - Details)

But according to the Merck Manual, laboratory monkeys are fed a diet strongly fortified with vitamins C (200 milligrams per kilogram of dry matter).  Vitamin C food fortification may avert coronavirus infection and make up a genetic flaw.

For comparison, humans have the same genetic flaw and consume ~110 milligrams of dietary vitamin C daily.  And even those people who use vitamin C supplements (usually 500-1000 mg pills) cannot match the continuous secretion of vitamin C that humans once produced prior to a universal gene mutation that occurred long ago in human history.

How much vitamin C?

In the 1970s biochemist Irwin Stone, using rodents as a model, estimated humans would need to consume 1800-4000 milligrams of supplemental vitamin C per day to approximate what our species once produced internally.

But even that amount of supplemental vitamin C could not possibly maintain adequate vitamin C levels throughout the day and night.  Supplemental vitamin C is rapidly excreted in urine (within 30 minutes) leading to the criticism C-pills just create expensive urine.

Greater amounts of supplemental vitamin C are excreted as dosage increases.  Only about 80% (315 mg) of a 500-milligram vitamin C pill is absorbed and another 241 milligrams is excreted within 120-180 minutes, leaving only 74 milligrams in circulation.

Vitamin C as stress hormone

Another factor is that vitamin C is a stress hormone that is internally produced in animals on an as-needed basis in response to biological or emotional stress.  Humans would have to habitually take vitamin C pills throughout the day to approximate what once was secreted continually from the liver.  A missing enzyme (gulonolactone oxidase) blocks the conversion of sugar to vitamin C in humans.

In most mammals, except for primate monkeys, guinea pigs, and fruit-eating bats that have the same genetic flaw as humans, sugar is enzymatically converted to ascorbate (vitamin C) continuously.  Given that the liver incessantly produces glucose and the diet provides sucrose and fructose, there is always enough sugar to enzymatically convert to vitamin C.   Since biological or physical stress releases sugar stores, more vitamin C is internally produced in vitamin C-secreting animals under stress.

What about bats and guinea pigs?

This means that, in addition to primate monkeys, fruit bats and guinea pigs should be more vulnerable to coronavirus infections.

Out of 1300 species of bats total, there are 166 species of fruit bats.  But not all fruit bats have ceased to produce vitamin C internally.

An article in the New York Times, entitled How Do Bats Live With So Many Viruses?, noted their unusual longevity (20+ years) despite the fact they harbor so many viruses.  No mention was made of their ability to produce vitamin C internally as most other mammals do, which might explain their otherwise implausible immunity from viral infection.

Bats have immune defenses that uniquely limit inflammation, a key to why humans succumb to coronaviruses that infect the lower respiratory tract and fill the lungs with fluid to the point where oxygen exchange doesn’t occur and severely infected patients die.  Bats are considered the origin of the COVID-19 coronavirus that is now threatening human populations.

The exception would be fruit bats that have lost their ability to internally produce vitamin C on demand as most other mammals do.  But even some fruit bats, such as Lenchenualt’s Rousette (Scientific name: Rousettus leschenaultia) still endogenously produce the GULO enzyme and secrete vitamin C.

Just one drop of virus can kill humans

Other animal species like guinea like guinea pigs (70% mortality when inoculated with a coronavirus, and some non-vitamin C-secreting fruit bats) succumb to coronaviral infections while other well-fed lab animals generally do not.

Dietary intake of vitamin C in wild animals that don’t secrete vitamin C

Below is a chart showing how much vitamin C non-vitamin C-secreting mammals (monkeys/gorillas, fruit bats) consume in the wild.  It is no wonder why they remain free of symptoms from coronavirus exposure.

This suggests human populations ARE vulnerable to life-threatening coronavirus respiratory tract infections, more so than wild animals. Animal to human transmission of viruses is possible (called zoonotic transmission).  Just a drop of a different virus from a monkey killed a laboratory researcher in just 6 weeks.

These vulnerable animals and humans share one gene mutation in common — they do not internally produce vitamin C as most other animals do on a 24/7 basis.

Don’t wait for the vaccine

Vaccine makers are working furiously to develop a coronavirus vaccine.  However, researchers now warn that a vaccine may actually make things worse.

Researchers say: “It is possible that a vaccine could be harmful.”  In other words, according to a report published in the Journal of Virology:

“While coronavirus germs that induce protective neutralizing antibodies have been identified, coronavirus vaccines present a unique problem in that immunized individuals when infected by coronavirus can develop lung pathology (pneumonia), a problem that is further exacerbated by the formulation of vaccines with aluminum adjuvants!”

Adjuvants (i.e. heavy metals) are added to vaccines to artificially provoke an immune response. This means any coronavirus vaccine must avoid aluminum adjuvants (immune boosters).

Human trials underway

Human clinical trials using vitamin C for treatment of COVID-19 coronavirus are now underway.  But that is for treatment, not prevention.  Fifty (50) tons of vitamin C has been shipped to Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the COVID-19 coronavirus epidemic.

A newly introduced nutraceutical, formulated by this author, Formula-216™, is testing well in preliminary trials, to restore 24/7 vitamin C synthesis to humans.  In the end, it may be the only hope for vulnerable human populations against a growing number of treatment-resistant pathogenic bacteria and viruses that now threaten humanity.