Recently Science carried a report concerning the action of vitamin C in vitro on fatty acids which led to the production of DNA damaging compounds. The lead author emphasized that this did not mean that vitamin C causes cancer and this was reported by Paul Recer, the Associated Press Science writer, and also by Reuters. I have not read this Science report nor do I intend to do so since I have no argument with the author's only important conclusion which is that his study had no relevance to whether vitamin C causes cancer. I am interested in how the press perceived and reported it and how it was used by critics to condemn the use of vitamin C and to come back to the ancient and long discredited idea that one can get enough vitamin C by a well balanced diet, whatever that is. This idea probably was current when our scientists were still swinging in " the trees and spending the major part of the day chewing leafy green vegetation, when we might have consumed 3 to 4 grams daily. I defy any human today to get this amount of vitamin C from any modern diet without using vitamin C supplements.