A new Substack essay by ‘A Midwestern Doctor’ exmaines the role of sunlight, ultraviolet exposure and a long-abandoned medical therapy once used in US hospitals, raising broader questions about how modern medicine defines evidence, risk and profit.
The essay challenges the prevailing view that sunlight—particularly ultraviolet (UV) light—is inherently dangerous, arguing this belief was heavily shaped by a 1980s public relations campaign that reframed dermatology as a cancer-fighting specialty.
It claims non-lethal skin cancers were overstated while evidence linking melanoma to insufficient sunlight was downplayed.
Citing a 20-year Swedish study of nearly 30,000 women, the author notes those who avoided sun exposure were 130 percent more likely to die than women who regularly spent time in sunlight, with significantly higher rates of cancer and chronic disease.
The article focuses heavily on ultraviolet blood irradiation (UVBI), a therapy developed in the late 1920s in which small amounts of a patient’s blood are exposed to UV light and reinfused. According to historical medical literature, UVBI was used in dozens of American hospitals through the 1940s and early 1950s to treat sepsis, pneumonia, tuberculosis, polio and other life-threatening infections—often with dramatic results.
By the mid-1950s, however, UVBI largely vanished from US medicine following a negative American Medical Association–backed study and the rapid rise of antibiotics. The Substack argues that flawed trials, professional politics and pharmaceutical incentives contributed to its abandonment, a pattern the author says has repeated with other low-cost or unpatentable treatments.
While UVBI remains marginal in the United States, related light-based blood therapies continue to be studied and used in parts of Europe and Russia. The essay concludes that the history of UVBI illustrates systemic failures in modern medicine, where economic forces may outweigh patient outcomes—claims likely to fuel further debate among clinicians, researchers and regulators.
Image credit: Ricky Esquivel
What equipment is required for this therapy?