Dr. Martin Healy:

I thank Senator Kyne for his questions. I wish to refer to the requesting patterns he asked about. It is interesting that in the past GPs did not really request vitamin D that much and there was no great demand for it but, in the current climate and with Covid and many of the issues surrounding vitamin D in the media, requests for vitamin D have gone through the roof. Practically every patient who goes to a GP now will ask to have vitamin D added to his or her test, even though GPs would not normally do so because they would look at the patient and, as someone said earlier, one cannot tell by looking at the patient whether or not his or her vitamin D level is low. If the patient walks in, sits down, stands up and walks out, his or her vitamin D might be okay, but the issue of the Covid connection with vitamin D and other issues have driven vitamin D requesting significantly higher, so we are now measuring far more vitamin D than we did in the past in GPs' samples.