The independent Vitamin D Council this week stepped up its criticism of Big Dermatology and anti-sun lobbying groups — claiming that “physicians who ignore vitamin D deficiency will eventually suffer medical-legal consequences.”

That’s maybe the strongest statement to date from the California-based vitamin D advocacy group, which has often pointed out that sunlight is the best and most natural source of vitamin D and that humans are intended to get levels of vitamin D that only come naturally from sun exposure.

Among other points made by the vitamin D council in its regular newsletter:

• Vitamin D is not a vitamin, but a steroid hormone precursor, which has profound effects on innate immunity.
• The amount of vitamin D in most food and nearly all multivitamins is literally inconsequential.
• The correct daily dose of vitamin D for adults is approximately 5,000 IU/day, not the 200-600 IU recommended by the Institute of Medicine, the National Institutes of Medicine and the FDA.
• Healthy vitamin D blood levels are between 50-80 ng/ml, levels obtained by fewer than 5% of Americans.
• Medicare’s new proposed rule change, which forbids Medicare carriers for paying for virtually all vitamin D blood tests, will kill tens of thousands of Americans yearly.
• In 1997, when the Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) set the current guidelines for vitamin D intake, they forgot to correct for the widespread sun avoidance that began in the late 1980’s when the AMA’s Council of Scientific Affairs warned against sun-exposure, and recommended that all Americans should make every effort to never let a photon of sunlight strike their skin. The failure of the 1997 FNB to compensate for sun-avoidance, has led to millions of deaths around the world.

For more information on the Vitamin D Council visit www.vitamindcouncil.org.