Linus Pauling, PhD
A Decade After His Last Interview,
His Reputation Continues to Grow
© By Peter Barry Chowka
(April 1, 2004) On August 19, 1994, Linus Pauling, PhD died of cancer at age
93 at his home in Big Sur, California. The only person to win two unshared
Nobel prizes (for Chemistry in 1954 and Peace in 1962), Pauling, during the
last 25 years of his life, became a vocal and uniquely effective advocate
for vitamin C and nutritional medicine. He has been given credit by many
people for almost single handedly making vitamin C the most popular and
widely used nutritional supplement in the world and for helping to
significantly advance the fields of clinical nutrition, primary prevention,
and "orthomolecular" medicine (a term he coined).
On April 9, 1994, four months before his death, Pauling gave his last
feature-length interview, to this writer. It was the eighth time since 1980
that I had interviewed him. The venue for our final conversation was a live
radio talk show in San Diego, California that I was hosting. On that
Saturday morning at 9 am, Pauling appeared on the program by telephone live
from his ranch in Big Sur.
The anniversary of that interview is April 9, 2004. The decade that has
passed provides an opportunity to reflect on both the content of the
interview and the fact that a talk radio program provided the context for
it.
During the quarter of a century after his involvement with vitamin C and
orthomolecular medicine began in 1970, Pauling used the media - particularly
radio and TV talk shows - to discuss his work and to spread the gospel of
natural healing. Over the years, he was a frequent guest on every kind of
program from nationally syndicated television talk shows like the one hosted
during the 1970s and '80s by Merv Griffin to radio call-in programs in local
markets, like that one I was doing in San Diego in 1994 on station KCEO AM
1000.
As media guru (and later, founder of the Fox News Channel) Roger Ailes
explained in his 1987 book You Are the Message, an author or thought leader
is only as successful in the media as the reality and legitimacy of his
personality and message. Pauling unequivocally embodied the messages he was
espousing: independence, empowerment, and health.
In the decade since his death, much of what Pauling pioneered, in terms of
vitamin C, the antioxidants, and nutritional medicine, has been validated.
For example, the Canadian Medical Association Journal published several
articles in its February 6, 2001 issue about vitamin C. The editorial notes,
"In the past decade, however, interest in vitamin C has been revitalized
with a new understanding of its biochemistry. Ascorbic acid, an antioxidant,
is now known to be a specific electron donor for 8 enzymes, and it may have
more biologic functions than just preventing scurvy. In this issue,
Sebastian J. Padayatty and Mark Levine review these developments and argue
that subclinical vitamin C deficiency may be more common than we think (page
353).
"On page 351 L. John Hoffer argues that it is also time to re-evaluate
vitamin C's possible usefulness in managing cancer. Pointing out errors in
the design of the randomized trials of vitamin C therapy published in the
1970s, Hoffer argues that although there are other possible explanations we
cannot rule out high-dose intravenous vitamin C as the cause of the
remissions in [Ewan] Cameron's patients. [Cameron, a Scottish surgeon
(1922-1991), became Pauling's close collaborator and the medical director of
the Linus Pauling Institute for Science and Medicine.] Such a thing is no
longer implausible. As science advances, so does the potential for a
miracle."
An excerpt from Pauling's last interview is interesting to consider now, a
decade after it was first broadcast:
PETER CHOWKA: For many years you and your colleagues faced an uphill battle
with the medical powers-that-be in terms of your inability to get a fair
hearing for your ideas about vitamin C and for nutritional medicine in
general. Has that situation changed?
LINUS PAULING, PhD: Oh I think it has been changing. Scientists have tended
to follow my recommendations, but I've had more trouble with the medical
establishment--they seem to me to be biased, not to have an open mind with
respect to information that becomes available about vitamins and other
nutrients in relation to cancer and other diseases.
Recently, in the last year or so, part of my effort has been to counteract a
strange stance on the part of the medical establishment: They have now
accepted the fact that antioxidants taken in foods cut down on the incidence
of cancer. But in their books and articles they still say "but don't take
vitamin supplements." This is completely illogical from my point of view.
They don't give any arguments at all to support the statement. A paper by
James Enstrom, Ph.D., and his associates shows how valuable even a little
extra vitamin C in the form of a supplement is.10
CHOWKA: Your comments about the medical establishment suggest another
question. In 1982 you said that, in your view, it was the American public
that was primarily responsible for the changing face of modern medicine,
especially for most of the progressive momentum. Is that still your view
today?
PAULING: Oh yes! I think that the public as a whole responded better to the
statements that Cameron and I or Hoffer and I were making than the medical
establishment. Ten years ago people were telling me, "I told my doctor I was
taking a gram of vitamin C per day or three grams of vitamin C per day and
he said 'You mustn't do that, that'll kill you, those vitamins are
poisonous.'" Five years ago people began reporting to me, "I told the doctor
I was taking several grams of vitamin C per day and he said, 'Well, that
won't hurt you. Go ahead if you want to. It probably won't do any good. But
if you want to take it, go ahead.'" Today, of course, doctors are apt to say
"That's fine, perhaps it is doing good for you," especially when the patient
shows up in much better shape than the doctor had expected and says, "I
think the reason is high doses of vitamin C and vitamin E and so on that
I've been taking." Doctors tend to agree with that point of view now. I
don't know to what extent doctors take the initiative in prescribing
vitamins for their seriously ill patients. But I think many of them are at
least open to it now.