A financial services columnist this week penned a strong essay urging everyone to question the ignorance of “the ‘consensus’ on sunlight exposure (which) has badly misled us towards vitamin D deficiencies.”

Patrick Cox, a columnist for Agora Financial, wrote a comprehensive essay echoing Smart Tan’s contention that anti-sun advice would be completely flip-flopped if the phramaceutical companies behind the message could sell sunshine.

“As a financial writer, I bemoan the fact that no one can patent sunshine,” Cox wrote. “Biotechs with therapies supported by far less evidence have exploded in value. Sirtris, for example, was bought by GlaxoSmithKline for $720 million to acquire IP for certain resveratrol-like substances. If you compare the evidence supporting the benefits of resveratrol vs. sunshine, sunshine leaves resveratrol in the dust.”

Cox’s essay — “Sunshine, Vitamin D and Death by Scientific Consensus” — points out that everything we’ve been taught about sunshine in the past generation should be abandoned.

“The ‘scientific consensus’ that has held sway for four decades regarding both exposure to the sun and vitamin D has collapsed. What has emerged in place of the old ‘settled science’ is the knowledge that most people in America are seriously vitamin D deficient or insufficient. The same is true for Canada and Europe, and the implications are staggering,” Cox wrote. “Simply put, unless you are one of the few people with optimal serum D levels, such as lifeguards and roofers in South Florida, you can cut your risks from most major diseases by 50 to 80 percent. All you have to do is get enough D. It also means we can significantly reduce both health care costs and the staggering national deficit by taking a few simple steps.”

To read the column click here.