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Comment by R0b0t1 | Hacker News Reader

5000IU is a rather large dose and her dosage was not adjusted. Beware of that author's potential biases: doctors are heavily invested in getting you to pay them more money even though they might cite humanitarian (and very patronizing) reasons for doing so. But, having vitamin D be easily accessible may be the better course of action. A similar scenario is sceen in India where most antibiotics are available OTC, something "unthinkable" in the US.

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> A similar scenario is sceen in India where most antibiotics are available OTC, something "unthinkable" in the US.

That seems very dangerous, and extremely bad public health policy. There are major concerns with anti-biotic resistant bacteria. I came across an article from 2017 suggesting the government clamped down on this. Is it still the case that anti-biotics can be purchased without prescription?

https://www.outsourcing-pharma.com/Article/2017/01/16/Indian...

Also, I'm confused, I can easily buy over the counter Vitamin D supplements in the US. Is the dosage of those not large enough?

I take 5 of the 'normal' dosage Vitamin D after watching reading heavily into the topic when it was making the rounds when COVID came about.

One that got me into it was Rogan's interview on the subject (whom as an individual I don't generally looking to a source for health advice, but the person being interviewed seems legit and my after-the-fact research seems to back this up): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBSfIckPV44

So I'm assuming the dosages are too low. But so are most 'natural' supplements.

Edit: this is the HN comment link for OP's mentioned "Shannon's Story" article https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24261948

For everyone's info, "normal" dosage is 25 μg, or 1000 IU per pill.

Yes, sorry I didn't have the bottle on hand to mention the dose. I'm going for 5000IU (the dose that the Shannon person in the article was taking for supplementation).

All the bottles at my pharmacy were 1000IU so I just bought one of them and take 5 of them.

I was surprised to read in the article (and elsewhere) that 5000IU doses was mentioned as a common OTC dose as I couldn't find it. But I live in Canada so maybe it's different.

Realize most problem areas are hospitals and factory farms where antibiotics are everpresent. Allowing people to buy antibiotics when they feel it is appropriate is a far different animal and liable to do more good than harm. The usage will be diffuse and does not seem likely to lead to a resistant strain competitive enough to lead to multiple infections.

The news article may be right, perhaps they clamped down on it. I am aware of people in the US buying aquarium or livestock antibiotics to treat themselves because healthcare is too expensive and time consuming.

Also note that the patient was in Arizona, and may already have been getting a good amount of vitamin D from sun exposure.

5000IU is the dose that most Vit D supplements come in.. its just a tiny little gelcap. And it's extremely accessible, you can get it in any drug store or online for not very much money.

> Beware of that author's potential biases: doctors are heavily invested in getting you to pay them more

The US is not the rest of the world.

Not sure why you're getting downvoted. It's definitely important to be aware of potential biases.

Probably because I think the science on avoiding too many antibiotics in a population is pretty well settled. Too many antibiotics will lead to more antibiotic resistant bacterial outbreaks.

Yes and no. Realize most problem areas are hospitals and factory farms where antibiotics are everpresent. Allowing people to buy antibiotics when they feel it is appropriate is a far different animal and liable to do more good than harm. The usage will be diffuse and unlikely to lead to resistant strains.

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