When Trump suggested putting light inside the body to treat COVID, the discussion became a national punchline. But few…

When Trump suggested putting light inside the body to treat COVID, the discussion became a national punchline. But few people heard the history behind it. Decades earlier, American doctors were treating blood with ultraviolet light and reporting remarkable recoveries from life-threatening infections. Then the American Medical Association helped drive the treatment out of hospitals. 🧵

By the early 1950s, approximately 50 American hospitals were using ultraviolet blood irradiation (UVBI). Fifty papers by 20 authors documented its use in over 3,000 patients with 36 different diseases. How did a treatment with that much published history become something most doctors have never heard of? Here I examine the early reports and the study that helped bury it: midwesterndoctor.com/p/ultraviolet-…

The discovery began with a mistake. In the 1920s, Emmett Knott tried removing blood, exposing it to ultraviolet light, and returning it to the body to treat severe infections. His early animal experiments failed. Then he accidentally treated much less blood, and the dog recovered. Shortly afterward, a physician asked Knott to treat his sister, who was dying from a bloodstream infection. She reportedly made a complete recovery.

One early report described a patient with pneumonia, a bacterial blood infection, multiple blood clots, and paralysis. He had lost 45 pounds and was considered terminal. His physician reported an almost immediate response to UVBI, followed by further improvement after a second treatment. Recovery took months, but he regained the lost weight and recovered completely. Cases like this explain why doctors began taking the treatment seriously.

The American Medical Association offered to validate UVBI through a $100,000 study and sought the rights to Knott’s device, leaving him a small share of sales. Knott refused. The AMA conducted its own study anyway, overseen by someone developing a competing device. Before it was completed, JAMA predicted it would fail. No one was allowed to inspect the machine during the study. When it was returned, a film was discovered blocking ultraviolet light from reaching the blood. The AMA used a machine that prevented the treatment from being properly delivered, then cited the results to declare the treatment ineffective. It was set up to fail.

That study included 68 patients, many with conditions UVBI was not ordinarily used to treat. Despite these problems, the historical account describes significant improvements in many patients, with no deaths or reported adverse events. Yet the 1952 paper concluded: “We have concluded that none of our patients derived benefit from the irradiation of blood with the Knott hemo-irradiator.” Hospitals abandoned UVBI as antibiotics became established. Knott stopped making his machine.

UVBI continued to be studied in Russia and Germany. Researchers have identified more than 200 articles on ultraviolet and laser blood irradiation published between 1934 and 2020. These approaches are different: classic UVBI exposes withdrawn blood to light before returning it, while laser methods can illuminate blood vessels directly. The methods and evidence matter. Reducing this entire field to a joke prevents people from even learning what was studied.

The UVBI story shows how a negative study, backed by a powerful institution, can eclipse decades of favorable clinical reports. It also raises a question medicine needs to take seriously: how do we fairly evaluate inexpensive treatments when the financial incentive to develop them is so limited? Here I trace UVBI’s discovery, the problems with the AMA study, and the research that continued after American hospitals abandoned it: midwesterndoctor.com/p/ultraviolet-…

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