 It's understandable that the Institute of Medicine chose to act conservatively when bumping up their vitamin D recommendation. An editorial in the American Journal of Epidemiology said it best, 30 years ago, vitamin A was all the rage, expecting that if we gave beta-carotene to people it would prevent cancer, but instead it caused even more. Next came the Bs, and I talked about this in one of my previous videos, folic acid supplements, vitamin B9, has since been linked to cancer as well. Next came vitamin C, which was another big flop. In 1993, it was vitamin E until it came out that it was shortening people's life spans. So when people proclaim vitamin D, the new wonder pill, we are right to be skeptical. Maybe vitamin D is the new vitamin A, the new folic acid, the new vitamin C, the new vitamin E, worthless or worse. Critics of the new recommendations, though, felt that by conservatively choosing a target blood level sufficient only to avoid growth-skeletal abnormalities was akin to setting the RDA for vitamin C at just the minimum level necessary to avoid scurvy. I'm sure a spoonful of orange juice worth of vitamin C would be enough to avoid the overt vitamin C deficiency disease scurvy, but no one considers that enough vitamin C for optimum health.