The article, which appeared in February 2022, claimed people with low levels of vitamin D were at increased risk for severe COVID-19 and were more likely to die of the disease than other patients.

The paper had a "huge, immediate impact", said Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz, a senior research fellow from the University of Wollongong in Australia, citing the fact that the paper had been viewed over 1 million times within six weeks of being published. The article joins others, many also flagged by Meyerowitz-Katz, purporting to find links between vitamin D intake and COVID-19 severity that have been retracted or removed.

Meyerowitz-Katz also wrote that, while the paper had "no obvious signs of fakery", the data were "deeply bizarre". He noted all of the patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease in the study also had hypertension, a trend not in itself unusual besides the complete overlap.

Source https://retractionwatch.com/2025/09/25/authors-defend-retracted-paper-on-vitamin-d-and-covid-19-critic-called-deeply-bizarre/

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