Institute Of Medicine Vitamin D Panelist Has Conflicts of Interest

On November 30, 2010, the Institute of Medicine release its "Consensus Report" suggesting updated Dietary Reference Intakes for Calcium and Vitamin D, in which it "reviewed" the evidence on vitamin D and health and came to the conclusion:

The IOM finds that the evidence supports a role for vitamin D and calcium in bone health but not in other health conditions. Further, emerging evidence indicates that too much of these nutrients may be harmful, challenging the concept that “more is better.”

The IOM decided that the "evidence" indicates that people do not require more than 600 IU of vitamin D daily, and that 4000 IU is the "Upper Level Intake" which we should not .  This conclusion could have come about only by ignoring the research of vitamin D experts,  which has determined that the average person uses about 4000 IU of vitamin D daily, and produces 10,000 IU by endogenous synthesis stimulated by 20-30 minutes of mid-day summer sun exposure [check here].  

If you were wondering what happened, the Alliance for Natural Health may have an answer for you:

A pharmaceutical company is developing a patentable man-made vitamin D analog—yes, a synthetic drug version of vitamin D. And Glenville Jones, PhD, one of the committee members who determined the new vitamin D guidelines and who is quoted as saying that under these guidelines, most people “probably don’t have vitamin D deficiency” and “We think there has been an exaggeration of the public’s interest in vitamin D deficiency,” is an advisor for that same pharmaceutical company.