Hmmm. I'm not sure that there are a lot of people with vested financial interests in preventing "access" to vitamin D, most of which should be acquired through diet and sunlight. Data regarding efficacy are equivocal IMO:

http://ods.od.nih.gov/factsheets/VitaminD-HealthProfessional/

Diet is a relatively poor source of vitamin D, unless we went back to cod liver oil. Fatty fish such as salmon and mackerel would provide under 400 IUs per 3.5 ounces, which is still below the recently revised IOM recommendations of 600 IU for adults and 800 for the seniors. The sun is of course a fantastic source of vitamin D, but the reality is that most of the world, even in sunny areas is at least insufficient. Probably due to life habits, clothing and warnings from dermatologists against sun exposure. It seems that supplementation is the simplest and most economical solution. A few economic return assessments have been made based on the potential health benefits and the savings in health costs are huge.

http://www.dsm.com/content/dam/dsm/cworld/en_US/documents/sal-magazine-3-2006.pdf

Vid D should be given routinely to pregnant women and newborns, as well as childen up to adolescence according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (2008) and to other risk groups eg women. MIlk and milks substitutes, milk products should be fortified with vitamin D as in Canada and the US for many decades. Vit D is safe and necessary for all age groups. Lack of attention to vit D deficit in low income countries by international organizations is a sad failure of duty. I have no conflict of interests.

Ted Tulchinsky MD MPH

The pharmaceutical industry would lose money, if doctors prescribed vitamins, essential fatty acids and essential minerals, thus preventing large expenditure on medicines for heart disease, cancer, diabetes, allergies, asthma, auto-immune diseases like multiple sclerosis, osteoporosis, babies with fragile bones and depression. It is sad that, here in the UK, doctors have minimal training in nutrition.

I think it's up to everyone to recognize, sooner or later, how much there is to benefit from with living closer to our natural designs. With that being said, not everyone can afford to adapt to a lifestyle that would surely improve their physical health in the short and long runs so it seems crucial to encourage supplementation where necessary to some extent. We still don't know if we are actually meant to reach the RDA of everything every single day because a natural diet of fruits and vegetables and such is probably the best indicator of what we are naturally supposed to get. Without sunlight though, the body goes through negative changes like in deficiency states. It's very plausible to assert that there is a dollar to make if you are in the healthcare industry and you are expected to treat a huge array of disorders that are caused by dietary insufficiency but not everyone is going to get better at once anyways. I think supplementation in Vitamin D is going to make some headway though because the FDA has recently adopted a new higher, adequate uptake that will hopefully result in very positive influences on the deficiency states that we have here, prevalently, but not as much so as in Europe. On the other hand, if you forget to recall that Vitamin D toxicity is thought to occur through vitamin K depletion, and that the importance of vitamin K is not as well understood either by most people, that disease will break out due to Vit. D toxicity. You can't go around knowing about vitamin D without knowing you need vitamin K just as bad and you can't know either of those things without knowing fruits and veggies are good and go hand in hand with sunlight in the natural world.