John Cannell M.D.

I would love to use this book in a class -- on rhetorical techniques and their use in science writing for the lay audience. This author really lays it on thick. I particularly loved his use of the "testimonial" -- perfect for pulling at the heartstrings of exhausted, desperate parents of autism-spectrum children. About halfway through one of them I was ready to stand up and shout "A-MEN! A-MEN, I be-LIEVE, I be-LIEVE! Halelujah!"

Not really. I just thought, "oh, brother."

He's got no real data. He admits he's got no real data. He's got some tantalizing correlations (not causation), and a bit of what might be biochemical logic, and that's about it. Most of the publications he's cited are from journals I'm having a hard time finding. The one solid result, cited late in the book (ch. 10), claims that 80% of ASD children given vitamin D supplements showed improvement. In the endnotes it's listed as "submitted for publication." I looked it up: that kind of improvement from a cheap supplement would warrant a major journal, how could I have missed seeing this on Eurekalerts? Found the publication. Never heard of it.

His thesis is this: the human body needs Vitamin D. All sorts of disorders cropped up --including autism-- right about the time that people stopped getting enough sun and started using sunscreen heavily. So the disorders are caused by Vitamin D deficiency. And they'll be cured, or at least mitigated, by high degrees of oral vitamin D supplementation. And/or lots of sunlight. ("And" for autistic kids, who may not be making enough D on their own --a speculation that shields him from the counterfactual "well, MY ASD kid gets lots of sun but is still showing severe symptoms." The "or" is for normally developing kids.)

Look, I'm not going to dispute that getting time outdoors is going to benefit kids. And that protecting them from every solar photon is ridiculous and quite probably harmful. I see those kids at the beach, white-smeared on every surface that isn't covered by the anti-UV body suits. Does it mean they'll be autistic? No. It means that their mommies are paranoid helicopter-mom nutters. Does that mean we should be supplementing? Who knows. Cannell produces no real data. But he tells us to go to his Vitamin D Council website to get blood tests (to monitor to ensure we're not overdosing our kid with the supplements) if we're unwilling to deal with the "hassle" of getting our doctor to listen and test our kid to keep us from overdosing him. Isn't this the doctor who is supposedly keeping up with current research in all the reputable, peer-reviewed journals? Why are we getting a "hassle" from our doctor, if this is so clearly going to benefit the ASD population? Well, because --as Cannell admits-- there IS NO DATA. He kvetches about the reasons (no money to fund it? really? I find it hard to believe that NIH wouldn't fund a proposal that was well-backed with the preliminaries Cannell claims).

Ultimately, this book doesn't have much to say. He's got an idea: vitamin D will help with the diseases (including ASD) that we've seen more frequently over the last 40 years. He's got some interesting points, but not data, and ends up falling back on "it won't hurt to try it," and (for liability protection) "only do this if you're willing to do the blood tests." Tell my kids to eat better and get more sun? Sure. Run out to dose the autistic kids in my community with 10,000 IU of vitamin D? Not so much.… (más)