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Comment by fattire | Hacker News Reader

Dr. John Campbell, an educator in Northern England who's been doing daily Youtube updates on Covid news since January I believe, has put out a few videos from time to time related to vitamin D:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5yVGmfivAk - A month ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GCSXNGc7pfs - 3 weeks ago https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-mHCn74E5o - 3 days ago

He suggests vitamin D deficiency may play a partial role in explaining higher mortality rates among people with darker skin (other important social disparities notwithstanding).

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Very important to remember that Dr John Campbell isn't a medical doctor. He's a nurse with a PhD in learning.

I'm still waiting for the statistics where skin colour is correlated to income levels. Then I suspect we'll see the real issue. Poorer people living more densely.

Ben Goldacre (and others) have done a rapid assessment of covid-19 risk. https://opensafely.org/outputs/2020/05/covid-risk-factors/

> Results: There were 5683 deaths attributed to COVID-19. In summary after full adjustment, death from COVID-19 was strongly associated with: being male (hazard ratio 1.99, 95%CI 1.88-2.10); older age and deprivation (both with a strong gradient); uncontrolled diabetes (HR 2.36 95% CI 2.18-2.56); severe asthma (HR 1.25 CI 1.08-1.44); and various other prior medical conditions. Compared to people with ethnicity recorded as white, black people were at higher risk of death, with only partial attenuation in hazard ratios from the fully adjusted model (age-sex adjusted HR 2.17 95% CI 1.84-2.57; fully adjusted HR 1.71 95% CI 1.44-2.02); with similar findings for Asian people (age-sex adjusted HR 1.95 95% CI 1.73-2.18; fully adjusted HR 1.62 95% CI 1.43-1.82).

He talks about it here: https://twitter.com/bengoldacre/status/1258372975004389379?s...

I believe he has claimed that vitamin D deficiency is associated with worse upper respiratory tract infections in one of the earlier videos.

He did. And he recently did a video talking about british research, which, having adjusted for socio-economic factors showed that the darker the skin colour the more likely the person would be to develop complications. His point here was that, dark skin impedes vitamin d generation.

It should be noted that while he does have some qualifications due to being a nurse and a nursing teacher, he's a Doctor in Philosophy and not in any medical/science field. It doesn't dismiss his claims per se but I still think he's using his Doctor title in a somewhat misleading way in this Covid19 context where a lot of people seem to think he's actually a medical doctor which he's not (edit: and this can be easily verified by just skimming through most comments on his videos which praises him in that regard).

This is kinda true, though he has earned the right to call himself a doctor, and I dunno if he should have to constantly have to add "though not in medicine!" Maybe he should? I don't know if "misleading" is the right word. He does seem to have expertise in the nursing field he's teaching FWIW, but yeah I researched him several months ago and found his linked in page which said the doctorate is in philosophy.

I've watched more than a dozen of his videos and assumed he was an MD. So I guess I feel mislead.

A doctor should not refer to themselves as a doctor when a doctor of a different field.

That's just wrong and abuse of authority. If he did that on philosophy he'd be ripped a new one

"Dr." for 'doctor' is the continental titulatur for finishing and successfully defending your doctoral thesis, thus attaining your doctorate. PhD is one of the US-variants of a doctorate. Reading 'doctor' and thinking 'MD' for 'Doctor of Medicine' is a mistake, although understandable when talking about medical issues. From Wikipedia I understand that f.e. in Canada MD is an undergraduate titel.

His PhD is in medical education, so I don't think it's fair to say it's not in a medical or science field. His online bios are clear enough about this, so I can't see how he's misleading anyone.

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