PARLIAMENTARY WRITTEN QUESTION
Vitamin C (11 February 2021)

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment Public Health England has made of implications for its policies of the literature review entitled Vitamin C: An Adjunctive Therapy for Respiratory Infection, Sepsis and Covid-19, published on 7 December 2020.

Asked by:
James Wild (Conservative)

Public Health England has not formally assessed this review.

The Scientific Advisory Committee on Nutrition (SACN) considered nutrition and immune function in relation to COVID-19 at its meeting in June 2020. The SACN agreed that their scoping exercise indicates a lack of robust evidence at this current time to suggest that specific nutrients such as vitamin C can reduce the risk or severity of COVID-19. This scoping exercise may be updated, or a more formal assessment undertaken, if robust evidence becomes available. The SACN noted that there was currently no new evidence that would change current dietary advice in relation to immune function.

Answered by:
Jo Churchill (Conservative)
23 February 2021