Most dictionaries define trauma as: "a body injury produced by violence or any thermal, chemical, or other extrinsic agent".

This "body injury" may not be at all obvious. It may be an internal disruption of body function that cannot be seen. However, you might note that three times as many, or some 450,000 additional people who, also, endure trauma, yet do not die, says this distinguished periodical, will, nevertheless, suffer permanent disability!

This adds up to the horrifying toll of some 600,000 young Americans annually, who either die suddenly or suffer life-long disability . . . many of whom may not have a scratch on them! (Aren’t they as important as those who have AIDS?)

High Stress

Actually, Dr. Irwin Stone, world pioneer on vitamin C, pointed out to me, in 1970, that some 50% of those who die in automobile accidents suffer no real bodily injury, yet die from the trauma, the high stress of the accident. The chart furnished by The Scientific American in their excellent CD, shows the timing of 862 mysterious deaths from trauma, over a two year period, at a San Francisco General Hospital:

The "wild" aspect of these findings is that the injuries to these persons are not regarded as intrinsically life threatening. Thus, the deaths are identified as due to trauma.

Some 27 years ago Dr. Stone told me that about 50 percent of those who die in automobile accidents, die not from any substantial injuries, but due to the high stress, the trauma, of the accident. Stone felt that, accordingly, it is of high importance that accident victims get immediate help. Thus, he believed that prompt intake of vitamin C, which is the outstanding anti-stress agent in the world, preferable in the form of mineral ascorbates, would save many lives.

"Researchers found," he said, " if one just jingles keys in front of a rat’s cage, that, in response to this stress, the rat will quadruple its output of Vitamin C". This illustrates an animal’s need for ascorbate, in order to deal with emergencies... and we are animals, too, and have animal bodily needs. Yet 99.9% of all other animals produce the mineral ascorbates of Vitamin C in their own bodies, protecting them against countless ills against which we have almost no protection.

The Scientific American estimates that about three times as many people die annually from Trauma (about 150,000) as from AIDS (about 50,000).

The Major Killer

Indeed, at the first World Congress on Vitamin C which I staged in Palm Springs in 1978, Dr. Stone’s topic was Sudden Death. All of this made sense to me, so I introduced at the World Congress where Stone spoke, a new product, named Emergen-C Drink Mix. Emergen-C forms the highly effective mineral ascorbates of vitamin C, and tends to get them very rapidly into the body. It has been the outstanding nutritional drink of America for some 18 years.

As the powder effervesces in water, it forms 7 mineral ascorbates, plus about 25 other mineral complexes, which get nutrients into the cell almost immediately. But daily intake of C, preferably in Timed Release form, with B vitamins and other trace substances (Super Gram III), can probably help enormously to avoid such emergencies. Of course, it will, also step up the immune system, as well.

Stone felt that some 98% of the population was suffering from sub-clinical scurvy (lack of vitamin C). He said it was sub-clinical only because the doctors cannot recognize it for what it really is, frank scurvy, ready to show itself when sudden, high stress is thrust upon the body, burning up what residual C is available to continue its physiological operations. Since almost half of the 862 deaths shown on the chart occurred within the first half hour of hospital entrance, certainly some quick action was needed to save these lives, yet obviously, no such quick action was taken, or is daily being taken, with such everyday cases.

Dr. Stone also told me that animals who, unlike humans, can produce vitamin C in their own livers, produce it in 5 stages. After the 4^th stage, in reaction to 4 enzymes, the glucose circulating in their blood becomes ascorbic acid, but it then goes through a 5^th stage in which the ascorbic acid reacts with minerals present in the liver to form mineral ascorbates. These are neutral forms of C which, unlike the highly acidic, ascorbic acid, are non-irritating to the blood vessels of the body. They are also picked up more quickly by body cells, since the minerals act as ascorbate transporters to carry this vital nutrition throughout every area, from head to toe.

The Terror of Trauma

I regard this as a very terrifying situation: That so many thousands of our fellows, when subject to some stress, without visibly sign of physical injury, may die in a matter of minutes. It’s hard to believe, but it’s been documented for many years. In fact, I have discussed the subject at great length with a distinguished physician and re-searcher who has been a close advisor for some 25 years, Dr. Abram Hoffer of Victoria, B.C. It was he and another Canadian researcher, Dr. Humphrey Osmond, who first learned, some 35 years ago, that most schizophrenia can be cured or checked with high doses of Vitamin C and niacin. Still carrying on a very active practice, at 79, Hoffer recently said:

"I am convinced," he continues, "that if everyone were to take enough ascorbate, they would not die as frequently as they now do from severe shock, excluding major loss of blood or organs. I think Irwin Stone was correct. Several years ago, I tried to get the local hospital to place all patients on the surgical waiting list on at least one gram a day, telling them that they could drastically cut down deaths and the number of days in the hospital, but they would not even consider this. I believe vitamin C is the major anti-stress nutrient in the body. Furthermore, if you take "C" as the neutral mineral ascorbates, your body can easily tolerate many, many grams of this live-saving nutrient." What Causes Sudden Death?

One important piece of information that is missing from the S.F. Hospital report; What were the life styles of these 862 who went so suddenly to their death?

Alas, this information is not readily available. But I will bet that smokers greatly predominated. Many years ago the pioneering Canadian physician, Dr. W.F. McCormick, calculated that each cigarette burns up about 25 mg of ascorbate in the average body. So, a few cigarettes can quickly put one in a deficit condition regarding his 'C' level, especially in his brain, the master cylinder that is secondary only to the adrenal glands as a storage point for ascorbate.

Anyway, I'm going to ask the Committee for World Health to conduct an investigation of the life habits of all people who end up so suddenly in the morgue without any substantial body injuries. Such information, in fact, should be an integral part of every coroner's report.

Taking the Breath Away

In Israel, two researchers, Biochemists Herman Soreg and Alon Friedman of Hebrew University recently unearthed a great clue as to a major brain dysfunction that may occur when the body is short on mineral ascorbates.

The Israel army was concerned that its soldiers might be subject to a chemical attack that interferes with the function of an enzyme, acetylcholinesterase. So the soldiers administered pyridostigmine, a drug that protects against such chemical attacks. Although the attacks never took place, after the soldiers had been in combat, the drug bridged the blood brain barrier, and induced serious side effects, something it was not supposed to do, reports the May '97 issue of Discover.

Puzzled by this result, Soreg and Friedman immersed mice in very cold water to stress them, then injected blue dye, which promptly went to the supposedly impregnable brains of the animals.

This is a rather revolutionary finding, since it opens up the possibility that, under conditions of severe stress, the human brain may be subject to invasion from which it is supposedly immune.

Biochemists have long since been aware that the brain protects itself with the blood brain barrier against countless potentially damaging substances present in the normal body. But, if stress can induce the brain to lower its bars, the menace that trauma presents to mental and physical well-being can be greatly intensified.

Thus, the brain which has lost all or almost all of its ascorbate protector appears to have a much greater vulnerability to total break-down, with deadly consequences. I surmise that this sudden admission to the brain of such usually inadmissible, potentially poisonous substances may be one of the principal factors in the high incidence of sudden death.

But why don't other animals, including the young ones, experience sudden death under the trauma of stress? That must be because more than 99.9% produce high levels of ascorbate in their own bodies. As I have previously mentioned, just jingle keys in front of a rat's cage, and it will quadruple its output of ascorbate to counter the stress.

panacea: a remedy for all disease or ills.

Panacea: an ancient Greek Goddess of Healing.

Long ago, Dr. Irwin Stone told me "ascorbate is the only known panacea. No matter what one's ailment, it helps to mitigate or cure it." Ascorbate works, he explained, in countless ways to protect the body and re-establish its full function. I feel that it has remarkable ability to restore balance to the cell, the unit of life.

Another ascorbate researcher, Dr. Frederick Klenner, of Reidville, N.C. found that intravenous administration of massive amounts of ascorbate could bring about the complete recovery of patients suffering from an enormous variety of ailments, ranging from snake bite to encephalitis of the brain. His results are all documented in a book.

The Real "C"

Thus, it became evident to me, some 25 years ago, that the only real vitamin C is the type of C that animals produce in their own bodies, mineral ascorbates. And so I abandoned the chemical business which I had headed for some 30 years in New Jersey, and returned to my native California, determined to produce the mineral ascorbates so essential to full health and long life.

Yet most of the world is not awakened to this fact: If you try to take the level of "C" you require, which should be many grams, generally, you will find that you cannot tolerate ascorbic acid in the multi gram quantities your body really needs. Ascorbic acid has a pH of about 2, which is highly irritating to the kidneys and bladder and tends to pull minerals out of the body, rather than introduce them, as is the case with mineral ascorbates.

Nobel Laureate Linus Pauling learned this, but he still kept on advising people to take the "cheapest "C" available, even though he reported highly adverse findings in the book "Cancer and Vitamin C", which he co-authored with Dr. Ewan Cameron, in that high intake (10 grams) of ascorbic acid induced "heartburn, flatulence, nausea, and especially diarrhea".

So I had a good reason for naming our new product Emergen-C which, when immersed in water, immediately forms the mineral ascorbates.

In 1989 I noted a San Jose, Calif. Mercury newspaper article which stated: "Asians In Their 30’s Are Dying Mysteriously". I wrote the paper, explaining that their cause of death was quite obviously scurvy, but received no reply. Two years later, in 1991, after returning from staging the Second World Congress in San Diego, we had a most dismaying occurrence. A 32-year-old Filipino had been working for us as head of our maintenance department for about two years. Since we had moved to Irvine, he had a long distance to drive, so he chose to work a ten-hour, four-day week, which put extra stress on his body. He also declined to take any of our vitamin C products which we were producing.

On a Wednesday, this young man rose at 12:00 midnight from his bed, only to promptly die. I attended his funeral, where they spoke of all the many things he had been doing for his fellow Filipino’s in the community, which, of course contributed to more stress on his body.

After the funeral, I attended a luncheon in the home of the sister-in-law with whom he and his family lived. Spread before me was me was a very long table, all laden with boiled food. His sister-in-law, an anesthesiologist, explained that while she might take half an hour to prepare a meal, he took three hours, obviously boiling everything to death...

This was further proof that he had cooked out all the residual vitamin C in his food, which seems to be a common practice among Asians. I now had the explanation of his death, scurvy, as well as the deaths of many other Asians, Sudden Death, by the book of Dr. Irwin Stone.

Baa, Baa, Baa!

When he was about 82 years old, the famed old-time singer, Rudy Vallee, the Bing Crosby of his time, (The Wiffenpoof Song, The Stein Song) got in touch with me and asked for assistance with his diet. We supplied him with our mineral ascorbates and other products for about three years. Indeed, my wife and I attended, in 1985, a Thanksgiving dinner for twelve in his Hollywood home, which proved to be his last Thanksgiving.

However, he later had a fall on his estate and had to have 13 stitches taken in his head, although no bones were broken, probably due to his good diet. But, he was not in touch with me over a period of some three weeks. I learned that an x-ray technician had discovered that he had a tumor on his esophagus. Rudy decided to have the tumor taken out, without mentioning it to me, although I would have warned him to maintain a high level of ascorbates both before and after the operation.

He underwent the operation at a well-known Los Angeles hospital. The operation was a "success" and the tumor benign, but he promptly had a stroke that left him in a coma! I visited him, although he was still unconscious, but he died two weeks after the operation. I later learned that he had no ascorbate before or after the operation, as the hospital had taken it away from him, so he suffered the rebound effect of total deprivation of "C" without any of the supportive action which he needed in a period of great stress. Thus, I believe his brain gave in to the shock, so he suffered a very serious stroke.

Equal Problem, Different Result!

Interestingly, when having a routine examination about three years later, I learned that I, too, had a tumor on my esophagus, although it had never bothered me. Indeed, it may have been there for more than 25 years. However, I decided to have it taken out while I was in condition good enough to sustain an operation. But I was much concerned that good blood for transfusion be available, since I did not regard the blood banks at that time as being too trustworthy.

The first surgeon I consulted in Anaheim regarding my request for good nutrition was a very imperious fellow, who told me very emphatically that his patients would take what he told them they should take and nothing else. So I immediately discharged him and turned to Loma Linda Hospital, near San Bernardino, California. The fine surgeon there readily agreed that I could take all of the vitamins I wished, both before and after the operation.

I accumulated four pints of O Positive blood with the Red Cross, three from my stepchildren and one from me, which were sent to the hospital for my specific use. . I, also, was determined to maintain high levels of mineral ascorbate, both before and after the operation, since I did not want to follow the death route taken by my friend Rudy.

So I went in for the operation on a Friday morning and took some 10 grams of mineral ascorbates with B Vitamins, Timed Release. They operated at about noon. But this was a rather difficult operation, which involved spreading apart the ribs on my left side.. However, my blood coagulated so readily that not one drop of blood was needed for transfusion.. I walked away from the hospital the following Tuesday morning, essentially very well recovered from the operation.

Thus I have reported on two operations of the same type, on men in their 80’s, with opposite results. You may choose which way you care to go, if you require an operation.

What Helps Keep Us Alive

I have re-established the Committee for World Health as a non-profit foundation to investigate more intensively the major ailments of man, especially the Two Genetic Liver Diseases, hypoascorbemia (inability to produce vitamin C in one’s own body), and hypouricasemia (inability to produce uricase, which inactivates the uric acid that induces gout and the crippling disease, gout arthritis).

The Committee, under the direction of molecular biochemist, Dr. Richard Dana, is trying to organize in San Diego a program under which patients arriving at a local hospital will be given at least two grams of mineral ascorbates, immediately, upon arrival. The ascorbates will be given either as an effervescent drink, a tablet, or intravenously. Once this program has been followed, I predict it will clearly become evident that deaths and disability from trauma can be radically reduced. The period of recovery will also be shortened mightily, you may be sure. Indeed, I hereby challenge the hospitals to give this program a try. Certainly, it can help to keep their patients around a little longer, instead of their being carted off to the morgue.

This program will help to prove to a disbelieving medical profession what can be done about the disabling liver disease, hypoascorbemia, that handicaps all humankind. However, such emergency procedures, though helpful in saving lives, are not really enough. All of us should be taking from 4 to 10 grams daily of mineral ascorbates in timed release tablets, which would protect us against the situations that bring on trauma and strengthen our resistance to disease, as well.

But I must tell you, at this juncture, that the intransigence of the medical profession is almost beyond belief. Most doctors and most medical researchers are so wrapped up in their strictly drug approach, where the big money is, that it is, still, most difficult to break through the Wall of Authority that they have imposed on our very lives. Thus, the chief concern of so many in the profession is to protect their turf, rather than to really help their patients. And the average doctor is, himself, so immersed in this drug, patch-up approach that he doesn’t live as long as his patients: He dies at 57!

An Exceptional Physician

A notable exception is Dr. William Saccoman of El Cajon, who has utilized nutrition in his practice for some 20 years. I wrote about him some 17 years ago. The wife of an Orange County publicist had been in an Anaheim hospital for several weeks, with a badly swollen leg from phlebitis, about which they could do nothing. In fact, they feared that the clot in her leg might loosen, travel to her heart, and kill her. But they didn’t know what to do about her case, so, astoundingly, they asked that she leave the hospital. At my suggestion, her husband picked her up in his car, and drove her to Dr. Saccoman in San Diego, who promptly put her in a hospital. There, he gave her, alternately, tablets of mineral ascorbates and niacin. Within three days she left the hospital, a well woman.

But, some months later, after the doctor had performed a few more miracles of alternative medicine, he was told that he was no longer accredited to the hospital, so he could not place any more patients there. In subsequent years, as Saccoman proceeded to employ his knowledge of good nutrition In two other San Diego hospitals, he was, for similar reasons, denied their facilities for his patients. Understand, though, this is par for the course. All over the U.S., doctors have even lost their licenses to practice simply because their methods did not conform to the generally accepted procedures of their peers. Since most of their peers know almost nothing about nutrition, a great injustice to the doctors who do, and to their patients, obviously ensues Thus does a Medical Monopoly, supposed established to protect the public, serve, instead to abuse the public and to enormously step up the death rate and the failures of doctors to perform for the public good.

Cop Stress

Dr Hugh Riordan, who heads The Center for the Improvement of Human Function, in Wichita, Kansas wondered about what happens to blood levels of ascorbate under stress. So, he checked the ascorbate blood levels of a group of Wichita policemen, just before they were to go on strenuous night duty. He found their ascorbate levels to be fair. Then he checked the policemen again, after 8 hours of stressful duty. Ascorbate blood levels: undetectable.

Stallone Survives

In producing the first Rambo film, Sylvester Stallone underwent many days of strenuous agony.

I interviewed him for three and a half hours after he had completed the picture, in his California home. He felt I had saved his life with Emergen-C. You can see the story, as it appeared in Sports Science. ()

On The Edge

Obviously, the average person is tottering on the edge of a precipice, unaware that a minor accident can easily occur that can quickly destroy him, or immobilize him for life.

A word to the wise is sometimes sufficient.

Cost Analysis: The reported cost of treating one case of AIDS latest, highly touted, drug is $15,000 annually, or $41.10 a day. However, we believe Death from Trauma can probably be prevented for as low as 16 cents a day.

Try our mineral ascorbates! We know that you will feel a clear benefit the very First Day !