Analysis by A
Midwestern Doctor
June 13, 2025
Story at-a-glance
·
Natural light is an essential
nutrient many of us lack within our bodies. When ultraviolet light is
introduced into the bloodstream, remarkable health benefits emerge
·
The dermatology industry created
hysteria about benign sun-induced cancers while ignoring that deadly melanoma
actually results from sunlight deficiency, not excess exposure
·
Once ultraviolet blood irradiation
(UVBI) was discovered in the 1930s, it produced miraculous results for patients
on the verge of death and was quickly adopted by hospitals throughout America,
demonstrating remarkable efficacy for a wide range of diseases
·
To neutralize this competition, the
American Medical Association published a doctored study that
"debunked" UVBI, and it became a forgotten therapy. Russians and
Germans recognized its value and have produced decades of research showing
UVBI's remarkable utility
·
This article explores UVBI's remarkable history,
systematic suppression, and scientific foundation, demonstrating why this therapy
represents one of medicine's lost opportunities
I've highlighted how unsafe pharmaceuticals make it
to market because approval panels were stacked
with people taking money from manufacturers (which was a
tactic Anthony Fauci weaponized against America).
·
I've discussed1 how the
American Medical Association was taken over by unscrupulous businessmen who
funded the association by promoting anything they were paid to (which is why
there were so many AMA advertisements of doctors promoting smoking)2 while using the
government to outlaw competing therapies.
·
I've shown how American society has
been separated from fundamental health requirements (e.g., sleep or sunlight),
how damaging losing these is, and how far the marketing industry goes to ensure
we never reclaim these basic health requirements.
This suggests that remarkable medical innovations
exist that have been overlooked or forgotten. I will discuss one — ultraviolet
blood irradiation (UVBI) — because there's vast evidence for its use and unlike
many other lost medical technologies, it's still relatively accessible.
Video Link https://odysee.com/@DoctorMercola:2/6.13-Lead-America%27s-Lost-Health-Breakthrough-UV-Blood-Therapy:4
The Importance of Sunlight
A widely held view exists that sunlight
(particularly its ultraviolet component) is dangerous and must be avoided.
Remarkably, much of that came from a 1980s public
relations campaign that the struggling dermatology
profession used to rebrand themselves as cancer fighters by creating a hysteria
about benign sunlight-induced cancers while downplaying that the deadly skin
cancer, melanoma, actually
results from a lack of sunlight.
Treating skin cancer is both straightforward and
highly lucrative, making dermatology one of the most sought-after medical
specialties.
Note: A 20 year prospective study
of 29,518 Swedish women found that those who avoided sunlight were 130% more
likely to die than women who had regular sunlight exposure.3 They
were much more likely to develop various medical conditions (e.g., they were
twice as likely to get cancer).
As such, I've attempted to shine light on the
critical benefits we receive from sunlight, how many illnesses result from
artificial lighting and a lack of sunlight, and that the same changes observed
in plants and animals due to unhealthy lighting are also observed in humans
(all of which is discussed here).
Key points I covered there included:
·
Unhealthy light causes and exacerbates cancers and
significantly increases infection risk (particularly in livestock).
·
Unhealthy light contributes to
behavioral disorders (e.g., ADHD).
·
Healthy lighting significantly increases the
health, fertility, and productivity of domesticated animals.
·
The circadian rhythm (which regulates
sleep and healing) is heavily disrupted by unnatural lighting.
·
Many biological structures are highly
sensitive to specific light wavelengths, which is problematic because
artificial lighting has narrow bands rather than a complete spectrum.
·
Light plays a critical role in
generating circulation and protecting blood vessels.
·
Ultraviolet light is particularly critical for
health. The most dramatic benefits of light
therapies occur when appropriate UV light is administered to the body.
·
Glass blocks essential UV light, so
modern life prevents access to that light, creating widespread UV deficiency.
·
Since skin has difficulty absorbing UV
light, we receive much light through the eyes. When individuals wear glasses
blocking sunlight from entering their eyes, health problems can ensue that
resolve once addressed.
The major challenge with light therapies is getting
light inside the body. Fortunately, methods have been developed to do this,
producing remarkable results for over a century.
The History of Ultraviolet Blood Irradiation
One of the oldest "proven" therapies was
having people bathe in sunlight. It was one of the few things that actually
succeeded in treating the 1918 influenza.4 Prior to antibiotics, it was one of the most
effective treatments for tuberculosis5 and was widely used for other diseases (e.g.,
erysipelas and mumps).6 One
UVBI pioneer noted that low doses of externally applied UV light stimulated
general resistance to infection in animals and humans.7
The medical field concluded that part of sunlight's
value was that ultraviolet within it was a sterilizing agent, and UV devices
were developed to sterilize things. For example, one of the most effective ways
to prevent COVID-19 indoors was exposing air to UV light, and one promising
approach explored for treating COVID-19 was safely putting UV light inside the
respiratory tract to sterilize viral particles (which is what Trump was
actually describing during his infamous disinfectant remark).8
Since blood-borne infections (septicemia) were a
major problem, in 1927, Emmett K. Knott (who was not a doctor) decided to try
sterilizing blood by extracting it, exposing it to UV light, and returning it
to the body. Initially, when testing this by infecting dogs with lethal bacteria,
he found that while treated dogs didn't have bacteria in their blood at death,
they still died after about a week.
Eventually, in 1928 an accident happened and Knott
dramatically under-dosed a septic dog, after which the dog had a dramatic
recovery — leading Knott to realize only a small amount of blood should be
irradiated. Shortly after,
Knott received a request from a doctor friend whose sister was dying from
septicemia for blood irradiation. The
UVBI treatment worked, and the woman made a complete recovery.
For five years, Knott refined his method without
testing it on humans, likely due to the difficulty in finding willing doctors
and the Great Depression. Eventually, in 1933, another Seattle doctor with a
septic patient on the verge of death reached out to Knott, and again UVBI
resulted in dramatic recovery.
Knott began traveling the country with his massive
machine, and beginning in 1937, successfully convinced skeptical hospital
doctors to use UVBI. As the therapy proved itself, more people adopted it, and
by the 1940s, pioneering physicians who tested it on hundreds of patients found
that UVBI consistently treated conditions such as sepsis, pneumonia (including
viral pneumonias), kidney disorders, asthma, polio, botulism, rheumatic fever,
and viral hepatitis.
UVBI almost always worked if administered early in
the infection, often yielding miraculous results even when patients were on the
verge of death, and significantly shortened hospital stays.
Note: Dr. George Miley, who had
done the most UVBI work, commented on Knott's work in 1940: "I think
personally that this is one of the greatest contributions to medicine ever made
by a citizen of the United States."
By the early 1950s, UVBI was being used in
approximately 50 American hospitals, with doctors reporting they had used it on
thousands of patients and consistently seen immediate and miraculous results
alongside a complete absence of side effects.
These doctors documented their work in a
significant body of literature: 50 papers by 20 different authors (published in
18 different medical journals) covering over 3,000 patients with 36 different
diseases — all finding remarkable UVBI benefits. UVBI was promoted in
mainstream media (e.g., The New York Times9 and Time Magazine10).
Here's one case from a physician who between 1938
to 1943 successfully treated over 400 patients with 35 different diseases using
UVBI:11
"A patient had thrombosis of the
cerebellar artery (brain blood clot), pneumonia, bacterial blood infection,
lung emboli, leg blood clot, and paralysis of his left side and vocal cords — a
hopeless and terminal case. When seen by Dr. Barrett, the patient was delirious
and irrational, had eaten nothing except Coca-Cola for 11 days, and had lost 45
pounds.
He was immediately treated with UVBI
and had an almost instant response. After a second treatment in three days,
there was further dramatic improvement. Although it took several months, he
recovered completely, regaining the 45 pounds he had lost and adding another
ten. This patient would almost certainly have died within days without UVBI
therapy."
Market Monopolization
At this point, the American Medical Association
(AMA) became involved and attempted to extort Knott by offering to conduct a
study validating UVBI for $100,000 (approximately $1 million today) and to
purchase the rights to Knott's device in return for a small sales cut.
After Knott refused (as did physicians across
America advocating for UVBI), the AMA decided to do its study anyway. It was
overseen by a friend of the AMA director (who was designing a competing device)
and curiously, prior to being done, JAMA announced it was likely to fail.
The study had various issues (e.g., no one could
inspect the machine, when returned they discovered a film had blocked UV light
from reaching blood, it only had 68 test subjects, many cases were conditions
UVBI wasn't used for).12 Nonetheless,
no adverse events occurred, no one died (despite many having dangerous conditions),
and many patients experienced significant improvement. Despite this, the 1952
study concluded:13
"We have concluded that none of
our patients derived benefit from the irradiation of blood with the Knott
hemo-irradiator."
Because of this "definitive study,"
hospitals across America quickly abandoned UVBI and became fully committed to
emerging antibiotics. Knott stopped producing his machine and died in 1961. The
Salk vaccine also eliminated interest in finding polio treatments.
Note: Fortunately,
UVBI revived in Russia, the former Soviet states, and Germany. Unlike America,
these countries couldn't afford extravagant medical spending and lacked routine
censorship of scientific ideas that threatened the medical industrial complex. Operating on shoestring budgets, they were
motivated to find economical disease solutions.
The most noteworthy aspect was that the exact same
thing has been done to many other promising therapies. For example, around this
time, the AMA approached the inventors of alternative cancer therapies (such as
the Krebiozen,
Hoxey and the Koch Catalyst) and pressured them to sign away almost all of the
rights for the treatment to the AMA or be blacklisted.14
In each case, the inventor refused because they
wanted it to remain affordable to everyday people, after which the AMA launched
a blitz against the therapy,15 and then with the help of the FDA, buried it
(which was later corroborated by a 1953 Congressional investigation).16 In short,
because of the power the AMA wielded, a single fraudulent negative study could
immediately erase large bodies of independent research showing otherwise.
As Pierre Kory details in "The War on
Ivermectin," this happened throughout the pandemic with unpatentable
COVID-19 treatments.17 With
hydroxychloroquine, the Lancet published a trial arising from overtly false
data (later retracted) showing HCQ was killing people, leading to worldwide
trial terminations.18
In contrast, numerous independent studies found HCQ
was one of the safest and most effective COVID-19 treatments if used early, and
prior to COVID-19, the "incredibly dangerous" HCQ was considered one
of the safest and most essential medications in existence.
Note: Similar absurdities occurred
with ivermectin and vitamin D (which for decades has proven more effective at
preventing flu than annual flu shots).19
Paul Marik (widely considered the world's top
critical care expert)20 repeatedly
demonstrated that IV vitamin C is transformative for sepsis when administered
early, dramatically reducing death rates (e.g., his hospital's sepsis death
rate dropped from 22% to 6%,21 and in a study, from 40.4% to 8.5%).22 Yet this
therapy was "debunked" because studies only gave IV vitamin C late in
hospitalization (where it no longer works), making it nearly impossible to get
IV vitamin C at American hospitals.
Note: During the early days of
AIDS, Anthony Fauci
suppressed lifesaving AIDS treatments while pushing a
dangerous failed cancer drug that became standard AIDS treatment based on
fraudulent studies.23
The costs of each of these are huge. Sepsis for
example, is the third leading cause of death in hospitals and kills 350,000
Americans each year.24 Similarly,
the primary cause of death from cancers is metastases, and many of the extreme
approaches used to treat cancer are justified under the possibility that they
might prevent a metastasis.
Likewise, COVID-19 being "incurable" cost
our nation trillions of dollars and killed hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Conversely, whenever an industry supported drug comes to market, it doesn't
matter how dangerous or ineffective its data shows it to be (e.g., the data for
both the COVID-19 vaccines and remdesivir showed they had significant dangers
and provided minimal benefit), a method will always be found to argue they are
in fact extremely "safe and effective."
Sadly, while awareness of UVBI's miraculous
properties has now largely disappeared thanks to the AMA's control of the
media, reports of it still emerge. For example, last year Joe Rogan and Jimmy
Dore discussed how Trump discussing placing UV light inside the body to treat
COVID was misconstrued as "injecting bleach" and how the AMA erased
this revolutionary therapy.
Types of Blood Irradiation
Various methods exist for getting light inside the
body. In the classic approach, blood is removed, typically diluted, and then
infused back, allowing it to pass through light (requiring IV parts made of
quartz glass, through which UV light can pass).
German and Russian researchers developed
alternative approaches — directly applying a laser onto surface blood vessels
(e.g., behind the knee or under the tongue) or threading fiber optic cables
into vessels and illuminating from inside. These approaches
(collectively known as laser blood irradiation or LBI) have been found
relatively equivalent,25 with LBI requiring more treatments.
A leading
researcher determined LBI had more rapid effects and was better for
bronchodilation and allergen hyposensitization,26 while UBI had more
substantial bactericidal and anti-inflammatory effects. Two weeks after treatment, UBI typically obtained
better microcirculation results than LBI.
Numerous studies demonstrate that LBI is effective
for a wide range of medical conditions, with varying effects depending on the
light wavelengths used. To quote a recent review paper about LBI use in
Russia:27
Additionally:
·
Unlike UVBI, LBI is not easily
obtainable in the United States.
·
Unlike UVBI, LBI can only apply one
wavelength at a time (due to laser coherence needs).
UVBI Research Foundation
UVBI
researchers have identified over 200 journal articles on UVBI and LBI published
between 1934 and 2020, with a third viewable online. These studies consistently
found a complete absence of side effects from UVBI.28 Conditions with
evidence of UVBI efficacy include:
·
Bacterial infections (sepsis, septic
abortions, osteomyelitis, meningitis, tuberculosis, typhoid fever)29
·
Viral infections (pneumonia, shingles,
hepatitis, severe COVID-19, long COVID, polio, AIDS)30
·
Cardiovascular disorders (heart attacks,
angina, peripheral arterial disease, intermittent claudication, Raynaud's,
thrombophlebitis, high blood pressure, pulmonary hypertension)31
·
Autoimmune disorders (rheumatoid arthritis,
asthma, eczema, multiple sclerosis, transplant rejections)32
·
Abdominal conditions (liver, biliary and
gallbladder diseases, pancreatitis, disseminated peritonitis, kidney diseases)33
·
Surgery (preventing post-operative
complications, reducing death rates, accelerating recovery, treating
postoperative ileus or burns)34
·
Obstetrics and gynecology (male
and female fertility, preventing miscarriages, preeclampsia, healthy babies,
polycystic ovarian syndrome, pelvic inflammatory diseases)35
·
Neurologic and psychiatric
disorders (depression, schizophrenia, migraine headaches, poor cerebral
blood flow creating tinnitus, foggy head or insomnia)36
Note: All of the studies for the
above conditions are discussed and summarized in this article.
Vasogen — The Patent Solution
One major UVBI barrier is that it's not patentable
and cannot justify the immense costs of clinical trials and lobbying for FDA
approval. In the 1990s, the Canadian company Vasogen attempted to solve this
problem by creating a device that mixed ozone, UVBI, and heat within its
proprietary device, then injected it into the gluteal muscle.
This proprietary approach (deemed
"irrational" by a leading ozone researcher)37 performed
significantly worse than other methods but still produced remarkable results,
resulting in Vasogen raising 225 million dollars, conducting over 60 studies
over 8 years, demonstrating safety, securing over 24 patents, and publishing a
successful Phase II trial for chronic heart failure and peripheral vascular
disease.38
Unfortunately, due to a poorly designed Phase III
trial (which had benefits but failed to achieve statistical significance),
Vasogen went bankrupt.39 Few
now know the company existed or that costly required Phase I and Phase II
studies for UVBI have already been done.
Additionally,
in 2015, AVIcure Bioscience published a Phase II safety study for UVBI,40 and in 2019, it
published a successful Phase III clinical trial.41 Both trials showed
safety for all patients and efficacy for the majority. Unfortunately, these
studies on hepatitis C were conducted, and simultaneously, effective
pharmaceutical treatments for hepatitis C hit the market, eliminating interest
in alternative approaches.42
Remarkably,
despite all this evidence and widespread usage for nearly a century, UVBI is still
called "fringe" or "pseudoscientific" therapy with "no
evidence," illustrating why those terms are meaningless.
Note: The key requirement of the
2018 Right to Try Act is that Phase I safety studies have been completed.43
Conclusion
The UVBI story represents a forgotten side of
medicine — a safe, effective, affordable therapy that could have saved millions
of lives was systematically buried to protect pharmaceutical profits. Despite
overwhelming evidence from hundreds of studies and thousands of successfully
treated patients over nearly a century, UVBI remains marginalized in American
medicine.
The pattern — initial enthusiasm, remarkable
results, systematic suppression through fraudulent studies, eventual
marginalization — has been repeated with countless promising therapies. From hydroxychloroquine and
ivermectin during COVID-19 to IV vitamin C for sepsis, the medical
establishment consistently employs the same playbook to eliminate competition
to expensive pharmaceutical interventions.
Yet UVBI persists, quietly helping patients in
integrative medicine practices across America and openly studied in countries
like Russia and Germany. The therapy Dr. George Miley called "one of the
greatest contributions to medicine ever made by a citizen of the United States"
continues demonstrating remarkable potential for those fortunate enough to
access it.
Understanding this history reveals fundamental
corruption within our medical system — a system that prioritizes profits over
patients and consistently suppresses safe, effective treatments that threaten
pharmaceutical revenues. Only by recognizing these patterns can we begin to
reclaim the remarkable healing potential that has been stolen from us.
Author's Note: This is an abridged
version of a longer
article about UVBI which goes into greater detail on the
mechanisms behind UVBI, summarizes its vast body of published literature, and
provides resources for those interested in accessing the most effective forms
of this therapy (something many have now reported benefitting from). That article and its
additional references can be read here.
A Note from Dr. Mercola
About the Author
A Midwestern Doctor (AMD)
is a board-certified physician from the Midwest and a longtime reader of
Mercola.com. I appreciate AMD's exceptional insight on a wide range of topics
and am grateful to share it. I also respect AMD's desire to remain anonymous
since AMD is still on the front lines treating patients. To find more of AMD's work, be sure to check
out The Forgotten Side of Medicine on
Substack.
Sources and References
·
1, 2 A Midwestern Doctor, April 21, 2024
·
3 J Intern Med.
2016 Oct;280(4):375-87
·
4 Am J Public
Health. 2009 Oct;99(Suppl 2):S236–S242
·
5 J R Coll Physicians Edinb. 2017 Sep;47(3):276-280
·
6 Finsen, Niels Ryberg. Phototherapy. Arnold, 1901
·
7 Anesthesiology. Vol. 3. No. 4. LWW, 1942
·
8 Adv Ther 38, 4556–4568 (2021)
·
9 The New York Times, June 10, 1940
·
10 Time Magazine,
June 13, 1949
·
11, 34, 35 Amazon, Into the Light: Tomorrow's Medicine Today
·
12, 13 J Am Med
Assoc,1952 Jul 26;149(13):1180-3
·
14, 15 Amazon, Politics in Healing: The Suppression and Manipulation of American
Medicine
·
16 99 Cong. Rec. A5350 1953 (Archived)
·
17 Amazon, War on Ivermectin: The Medicine that Saved Millions and Could
Have Ended the Pandemic
·
18 The Lancet, Volume 0, Issue 0
·
19 Amazon, Miller's Review of Critical
Vaccine Studies: 400 Important Scientific Papers Summarized for Parents and
Researchers
·
20, 21 Justus R. Hope,
January 14, 2024
·
22 Chest. 2017
Jun;151(6):1229-1238
·
23 A Midwestern Doctor, June 8, 2024
·
24 NIH, Sepsis
·
25 The Internet Journal of Laserneedle Medicine. 2013 Volume 3 Number 1
·
26 Amazon, Healing Photons: The Science & Art of Blood Irradiation
Therapy
·
27 Journal of Lasers in Medical Sciences 8(2):56-65
·
28 Invisible Cure, List of UBI Studies
·
29 The American Journal of Surgery, Volume 57, Issue 3, 493-507
·
30 Russian Journal of Infection and Immunity. 2021, Vol. 11,
N. 6, P1152-1158
·
31, 33 The Foundation for Blood Irradiation,
Inc. (1933-1997) (Archived)
·
32 Medical Clinics of North America, Volume 24, Issue 3, 1940, Pages 723-732
·
36 Laser Blood Illumination. The Main
Therapeutic Techniques. – M.–Tver: Triada, 2018. – 64 p
·
37 December 2008 International Journal of Cardiology 139(3):304-5
·
38 Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Volume 44, Issue 6, 2004,
Pages 1181-1186
·
39 Journal of Cardiac Failure, Volume
12, Issue 9, 763
·
40 Int J Infect Dis. 2015 Aug:37:58-63
·
41 Cogent Medicine, 6(1)
·
42 Healthline.com, April 15, 2019
·
43 S.204 - Trickett Wendler, Frank Mongiello, Jordan McLinn, and Matthew
Bellina Right to Try Act of 2017
Source: https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2025/06/13/uvbi-revolutionized-medicine.aspx?cid_source=takecontrol&cid_medium=email&cid_content=art1HL&cid=20250713_TC
