The Atlantic piece slams the famous Nobel Prize-winning chemist who convinced humans to pop vitamin supplements.

The Atlantic Monthly published an article discussing the vitamin myth and Linus Pauling, the famous Nobel laureate who convinced people to take vitamin supplements.

On October 10, 2011, researchers at the University of Minnesota found that women taking multivitamin supplements had a higher mortality rate than those who did not take vitamins. Two days later, researchers from the renowned Cleveland Clinic reported that men taking vitamin E had a higher risk of developing prostate cancer. These findings were not new. Previous studies had already shown that vitamins could increase the risk of cancer, heart disease, and shorten life expectancy. Yet in 2012, more than half of Americans were still taking some form of vitamin supplement.

Few people realize that the human obsession with vitamins can be traced back to one prominent scientist—Linus Pauling, the recipient of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1954 and the Nobel Peace Prize in 1962. Due to his mistakes in promoting the medical use of vitamins, he may be the most influential quack in the world. In 1970, Pauling published an article titled "Vitamin C and the Common Cold," encouraging the public to take 3,000 milligrams of vitamin C daily. He believed that colds would then become a footnote in history.