Vitamin D Report Prompts Conflict of Interest Suspicion

The Institute of Medicine’s Nov. 30 consensus statement claiming most Americans do not need supplemental vitamin D—a position that runs counter to the views of many clinicians and researchers has some folks wondering if committee members had preexisting biases or vested interests against supplementation.

It turns out that at least two members of the committee hold patents on synthetic vitamin D analogs in development or already on the market as prescription drugs, and significant relationships with companies involved in vitamin D drug development.

Glenville Jones, PhD, Head of Biochemistry at Queen’s University, Kingston, ON, Canada. Dr. Jones, an outspoken member of IOM’s Vitamin D & Calcium review committee, is on the scientific advisory board of Cytochroma, a Canadian specialty pharma company dedicated to “Promoting Health Through Vitamin D Therapeutics."

The company is developing three synthetic vitamin D analogs as prescription drugs initially for the treatment of vitamin D insufficiency and hyperparathyroidism associated with chronic kidney disease. Dr. Jones is named among the “inventors” on several of Cytochroma’s patents.

Cytochroma posted the following in a recent press release: “Cytochroma’s clinical and non-clinical teams continue to achieve important research advances that validate our focus on vitamin D, CYP24 and secondary hyperparathyroidism,” stated P. Martin Petkovich, Chief Scientific Officer. “With existing vitamin D treatments limited by mediocre efficacy and dose-limiting side effects, our therapeutic approach of using vitamin D, yet mitigating the impact of CYP24, may result in superior treatment of secondary hyperparathyroidism in chronic kidney disease patients.”

The company presented three studies of its vitamin D receptor modulating drugs at the recent annual meeting of the American Society of Nephrology.

https://holisticprimarycare.net/topics/topics-a-g/chronic-disease/1066-whos-in-bed-with-the-iom-vitamin-d-report-prompts-conflict-of-interest-suspicion

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