It's all about the money

What if you had a safe pill that might improve the brains of Alzheimer’s patients, reduce the incidence of colorectal cancer by 50 percent, reduce the incidence of breast cancer by 50 percent, and reduce the risk of multiple sclerosis by 62 percent? Would you use it? Of course, you say. Of course I’d use it.

Well it turns out that vitamin D is supposed to do all those things and maybe more. But according to this article the research may never be done that might establish its effectiveness, and the pharmaceutical industry probably won't encourage its use because “there is little money to be made off a non-proprietary substance such as vitamin D.”

In other words, in this case at least, it looks like it’s all about the money, not about what is good for the public. Because the drug companies can’t patent it and own it and sell it to the public it won’t go forward. Of course I’m not surprised by any of this. In fact it is what I expect, and it’s what’s going on with the Biotech industry too: when a biotech company creates a new product – like a new brand of corn, or something like that – I don’t think it is about improving nutrition or even making a better product. It’s all about making money. The more people understand this, the less favorable impression I think they’ll have of the Biotech industry.

In the meanwhile, just because the pharmaceutical industry probably won’t give us a vitamin D pill that will make us healthier, that doesn’t mean we can’t take some of it ourselves. And that doesn’t mean we can’t get out and get a little sunshine. After all, that is free. And if we don’t overdo it, then it might actually do us some good.


vitamin D, multiple sclerosis, drug companies, Alzheimer's disease, breast cancer, Biotech, ultraviolet, cancer, UV, sunshine, flu, colon cancer, health,