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Blanket coverage for vitamin D testing urged

Vitamin D testing should be covered for everyone in Ontario as a means of preventing conditions such as osteoporosis, instead of limiting it to those already diagnosed, groups are urging the provincial government.

TORONTO — Vitamin D testing should be covered for everyone in Ontario as a means of preventing conditions such as osteoporosis, instead of limiting it to those already diagnosed, groups are urging the provincial government.

Ontario is considering delisting the test for most of the population, only continuing to fund tests for patients with conditions such as osteoporosis, rickets, osteopenia, malabsorption syndromes and renal disease.

In five years vitamin D tests in Ontario skyrocketed from 29,000 tests in 2004 to 700,000 in 2009.

A spokesman for the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care said the government didn’t have an estimate for how much money could be saved by cutting coverage, but said it’s expected the province will be billed $66 million for the tests this year.

Health Minister Deb Matthews has said it’s important to “ensure that precious health-care dollars are invested in care that is evidence based.”

If the limited vitamin D test coverage goes ahead, Ontario would be falling into line with several other provinces — Manitoba, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan — that have made similar moves.

But for Ontario doctors who tout the benefits of vitamin D and other proponents in the health community, the proposed move makes no sense in terms of disease prevention.

“It’s so obviously ridiculous to say, ‘We’re going to pay for tests once you have osteoporosis, but we won’t pay for tests which might give us a clue that you could prevent getting osteoporosis,”’ said Dr. Linda Rapson.

Rapson, the past chair of the Ontario Medical Association Complementary Medicine Section, and other like-minded health professionals cite a broad range of conditions and diseases linked to vitamin D deficiencies such as heart disease, many cancers, chronic pain and depression.

“Vitamin D is involved in regulating processes in almost every tissue of the body,” said Aileen Burford-Mason, the president of the Holistic Health Research Foundation of Canada.

Burford-Mason, who also teaches doctors in continuing medical education courses about vitamin D, believes it could actually save money to keep covering the test for everyone, because of savings in treating disease.

“Even if it was revenue neutral, wouldn’t it be worth it to prevent disease?” she said.