Pediatricians Ensuring Vitamin D Deficiency in Children

One of the ironies in health care is that drug treatments laden with dangerous side effects will almost always be quickly adopted by conventional physicians, in part because of aggressive and shrewd marketing by pharmaceutical companies, but doctors fret over the alleged dangers of nutrients.

In October, the American Academy of Pediatrics took the “bold” step of recommending a doubling of the amount of vitamin D for infants, children, and adolescents. The previous recommendation had been for 200 IU daily of vitamin D beginning sometime during the first two months of life. The new recommendation called for 400 IU of vitamin D daily starting within a few days after birth.

Unless your head has been in the sand, you have seen many articles describing the remarkable research on vitamin D. Nearly everyone becomes deficient during the winter months, when the sun is too low to stimulate production of the vitamin, and large percentages of the population are deficient throughout the year.

As a result, even generally conservative and cautious physicians, such as Walter Willett, MD, of Harvard University, have been recommending 1,000 IU of vitamin D daily for every infant, child, and adult – with a doubling of this dose for people with dark complexions (who are more resistant to the vitamin D-producing effect of sunlight on skin).

So while the American Academy of Pediatrics has increased its recommendations for vitamin D, the organization essentially chickened out when it came to a meaningful recommendation. By proposing that infants and children receive only 400 IU of vitamin D daily, the Academy has ensured continued, widespread deficiencies.