TO: All melanoma researchers, doctors, and patients.

Some are touting practically every disease under the sun--even the common cold--as being a vitamin D deficiency. Such one-pill wonders raise a red flag.

Those selling vitamin D as a cure-all for humanity's ills have a lot of explaining to do. First and foremost, they will need to explain why those diseases do not afflict a baby in the womb, who is just as susceptible to periods of vitamin D depletion as the mother. They will then need to explain why none of the touted cancers (such as prostate, breast, and colon) outpaced melanoma growth during the sun-avoidance decades. They will also need to explain why breast cancer primarily afflicts women, when men are similarly susceptible to vitamin D deficiency. They will need to explain why an internal organ would get depleted first, when there's nothing to be gained from it like there is with the skin. Then they will need to explain why one person would get one disease, say multiple sclerosis, but another person would get another disease, say rheumatoid arthritis, when vitamin D is depleted in both. They will need to explain why the disease is consistently more common in the north and less in the south, since people in the north and south alike are susceptible to vitamin D deficiency year-round. And on top of all that, they will need to explain how on earth the greatest minds of medicine, working painstakingly over the 20th century with the most advanced technologies, could have completely missed vitamin D deficiency causing so many major human illnesses.

Meanwhile, the most promising vitamin D deficiency disease--melanoma--remains neglected.

James in Albuquerque