(First of all, there isn't much vitamin C in meat, unless you eat liver.)
Obviously vitamin C in food would be unaffected, but the way people eat may well be if they think they are vitamin C proofed. Vitamin C is added to everything these days, and this would likely stop happening in a post-patch world when its value as a health gimmick diminishes. Intake of fruit and vegetables is already poor.
So although it is likely there will be a reduction in scurvy cases initially, there may be a resurgence when changes in dietary habits/food production occur and are misapplied in people who are not patched.
Post-patch this becomes a problem we created, inadvertently or not. I disagree that this situation is ethically OK.
There are numerous examples of paradoxical/unintended trends in public health:
1. Increasing incidence of HIV infection in developed countries in some communities, possibly due the notion that the disease is now easier to treat.
2. Outbreaks of polio after apparent eradication due to isolated anti-vaccine communities.
3. Increasing numbers of multi-resistant bacteria and even new infections arising from widespread indiscriminate antibiotic use (by doctors and farmers).
4. Patients who develop a false sense of security after a negative test for a mutation predisposing to breast cancer, then don't participate in routine screening (which is why anyone who has such a test should receive professional genetic counselling).
I don't think there are any fire and forget interventions where human health is concerned...
(First of all, there isn't much vitamin C in meat, unless you eat liver.)
Obviously vitamin C in food would be unaffected, but the way people eat may well be if they think they are vitamin C proofed. Vitamin C is added to everything these days, and this would likely stop happening in a post-patch world when its value as a health gimmick diminishes. Intake of fruit and vegetables is already poor.
So although it is likely there will be a reduction in scurvy cases initially, there may be a resurgence when changes in dietary habits/food production occur and are misapplied in people who are not patched.
Post-patch this becomes a problem we created, inadvertently or not. I disagree that this situation is ethically OK.
There are numerous examples of paradoxical/unintended trends in public health:
1. Increasing incidence of HIV infection in developed countries in some communities, possibly due the notion that the disease is now easier to treat.
2. Outbreaks of polio after apparent eradication due to isolated anti-vaccine communities.
3. Increasing numbers of multi-resistant bacteria and even new infections arising from widespread indiscriminate antibiotic use (by doctors and farmers).
4. Patients who develop a false sense of security after a negative test for a mutation predisposing to breast cancer, then don't participate in routine screening (which is why anyone who has such a test should receive professional genetic counselling).
I don't think there are any fire and forget interventions where human health is concerned...