A decision in 1979 opened the door for the current COVID-19 epidemic in a way few would imagine.
The question was whether to add vitamins to alcoholic beverages, vitamins that alcohol (C2H5OH) depletes, magnesium, zinc and vitamin B1 being the most prevalent.
In 1979 researcher Brian Centerwall and Michael Criqui published a study in The New England Journal of Medicine arguing for vitamin fortification of alcoholic beverages with thiamine (vitamin B1).
Every dollar invested in B1 fortification was predicted to save $7 in nursing home costs.
During the 1930s Seagram & Sons, Anheuser-Busch and the California Wine Institute found vitamin B1 to be stable in whiskey, wine and beer.Fortification would prevent the horrific loss of memory and muscle control among over-imbibers, what is now called Wernicke-Korsakoff Syndrome.
Of course, the American Medical Association agreed. They wanted more disease for doctors to treat, another reason proves American population is being gamed for disease.
Greatest severity of COVID-19 infections is observed in alcohol imbibers.
During the COVID-19 lockdown, people tend to reach for comfort foods, namely processed grains (bread, pasta, polished rice, cereal) where the vitamin B1-rich hulls and bran have been removed and fortification is not enough to overcome other factors like alcohol and coffee/tea drinking that block absorption of B1.
Alcohol imbibers who have difficulty cutting down on consumption may benefit from a natural molecule from the Asian raisin tree – myricetin. It not only abolishes a hangover, it curbs alcohol craving.
Now if only some wise entrepreneur would figure out how to put the vaccine in a highball there would be no vaccine hesitancy.
But even then, without vitamin B1, people would still be getting sick and die.