Vitamin D is not just beneficial, it’s a necessity | Letter

Great to see vitamin D on your front page at last (Vitamin D ‘proved to cut risk of colds and flu’, 16 February). Those of us in the British Society for Ecological Medicine, a group of doctors who take the nutritional aspects of our patients’ treatment very seriously, have been banging on about the benefits, and indeed the necessity, of vitamin D for decades. Indeed, the society’s president, Dr Damien Downing, published a book about it back in 1988 entitled Day Light Robbery – The Importance of Sunlight to Health.

I would just like to add two points: first, vitamin D is vital not only to the health of the immune system, thereby in fact reducing the likelihood of cancer as well as of infections, it is also essential for mental health. In young people with depression and in older people with onset of dementia, we find desperately low levels of vitamin D. Vegans are particularly at risk, because in the British climate they have virtually no source of vitamin D at all.

Second, with regard to the proposal to add vitamin D to our food: it is crucial that this be the real thing, vitamin D3, cholecalciferol. Too often, what is added to foods and cheap multivitamins is vitamin D2, ergocalciferol, which is synthetic and far less useful.

Thank you again for publicising this excellent research.
Dr Jenny Goodman
Barnet, Hertfordshire

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Vitamin D is not just beneficial, it’s a necessity | Letter

Why Commissioner Silver"s Attempt To Increase The NBA Age Necessity Is A Colossal Error

By all accounts, new NBA Commissioner Adam Silver is both intelligent and nicely-liked.  He understands engineering, gets along well with individuals, and has a vivid potential as the leader of America’s premier professional basketball league.

Even so, in his 1st month on the work, Commissioner Silver has currently made one colossal blunder — announcing his intent to improve the NBA age necessity.

If anybody evaluates Adam Silver’s overall performance as commissioner based mostly on his ability to raise the NBA minimum age necessity, the outcomes will not be quite.  The NBA age necessity is an very dicey topic, both legally and politically.

Legally, it is effectively settled that any sports league with market place energy cannot unilaterally enhance its age necessity with out quite likely violating antitrust law.  In the 1960s, the NBA had a rule that necessary its gamers to be four many years removed from large school just before coming into the league draft.  Hall of Fame center Spencer Haywood challenged the rule in court, and the rule was overturned.

Based on this legal actuality, Commissioner Silver virtually certainly could not raise the league’s age necessity alone.  He would need to very first get union approval.

Furthermore, it is hugely unlikely that the NBA Players Association would agree to increase the minimum age necessity at this time.  Even although a greater age necessity would provide existing NBA gamers with a lot more work protection, the union still has sturdy legal and political motives for opposing this kind of a modify.

From a purely legal point of view, the NBA gamers union may possibly be reluctant to enhance the league’s age requirement based mostly on the worry of receiving sued by youthful gamers that grow to be excluded from the league.  To the extent the union purports to represent prospective new entrants into their league, they legally owe these prospective entrants a duty of honest representation.  This signifies that the union may possibly not act towards potential new entrants in a method that is arbitrary, discriminatory, nor in negative faith.

Even though there is small case law on this problem in the context of minimum age specifications, there is at least  some legal precedent that implies a sports activities union’s agreement to increase the league age requirement may possibly be seen as discriminatory.  Thus, the NBA Players Association would be extremely unlikely to bear this legal threat – at least with no the written guarantee of total indemnification from the league.

In addition, past the pure legal danger, there is also a massive political threat to the NBA Gamers Association raising its minimal age necessity.  Although a lot of NBA players may prefer a rule that keeps young gamers out the league, several gamers, as effectively as followers, are also proponents of school athletes’ rights – thus pushing the union in the opposition path.

In addition, the principal law company that represents the NBA gamers in collective bargaining, Winston Strawn, lately opened a new practice group to aid defend student-athletes’ rights towards the NCAA.  It would surely not bode nicely for the long term of this group if other Winston Strawn lawyers are doing work to exacerbate the plight of younger athletes by helping to raise the league’s minimal age necessity.

Of course, it is achievable that someday the NBA players union would be far more open to growing the NBA minimal age rule – perhaps at the conclusion of the following collective bargaining agreement, or as soon as the courts (hopefully) overturn the NCAA’s ‘no pay’ principles in the Pupil-Athlete Name and Likenesses Litigation — generating it attainable for best university athletes to earn livable wages even though enjoying on the level.

But, even to the extent there is a appropriate time for NBA Commissioner Adam Silver to consider on the NBA minimum age requirement that time surely is not to now.

For now, the greatest move for Adam Silver would be to drop his talk about raising the NBA age requirement, and to revisit the issue either at the finish of the existing NBA collective bargaining agreement, or once a court (hopefully) rules in favor of the plaintiff in the Student-Athlete Title and Likeness Licensing Litigation and overturns the NCAA’s ‘no pay’ principles for Division I university basketball gamers.

In the interim, there are so several much more pressing issues that new NBA commissioner Adam Silver could handle that would show far a lot more fruitful, and much less divisive.

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Marc Edelman is an Associate Professor of Law at the City University of New York’s Baruch University, Zicklin College of Company, exactly where he has published far more than 25 law review articles on sports law matters.  His most latest articles include “A Quick Treatise on Amateurism and Antitrust Law” and “The Long term of Amateurism after Antitrust Scrutiny.”

Why Commissioner Silver"s Attempt To Increase The NBA Age Necessity Is A Colossal Error

The NFL Age Necessity Was Briefly "Sacked" Ten Many years In the past Nowadays

Ten many years in the past nowadays, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled that the Nationwide Football League’s age necessity violated Segment one of the Sherman Act.

This decision led the two Ohio State University sophomore Maurice Clarett and University of Southern California sophomore Mike Williams to declare for the 2004 NFL draft.  It also led to a vehement appeal by the National Football League, and the filing of amicus briefs on the NFL’s behalf by the National Basketball Association, Nationwide Hockey League, and even the Nationwide Collegiate Athletic Association.

Although the district court’s determination in Clarett v. NFL was later reversed on appeal by Hon. Sonia Sotomayor (then, serving on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit), the decision still marked a watershed minute in sports law historical past as, for a quick second, it named into doubt the NFL’s age/schooling requirement.

(Photograph credit score: Wikipedia)

The 2004 challenge to the NFL’s age requirement obtained about as significantly focus as any sports activities law situation in recent historical past.

The plaintiff, Maurice Clarett, had rushed for a record-setting one,237 yards and 18 touchdowns the earlier 12 months as a freshman at Ohio State University.  However, Clarett was declared ineligible to play college football as a sophomore based mostly on accusations that he had obtained improper advantages from boosters in violation of the NCAA guidelines.

Wanting to proceed to play football on some level, Clarett employed lawyer Alan Milstein to signify him in a legal challenge against the NFL age requirement.  To aid him with this challenge, Milstein then brought aboard current University of New Hampshire sports activities law professor Michael McCann, who at the time was a newly minted attorney.

Below Milstein and McCann’s guidance, Clarett filed an antitrust declare in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York that argued the NFL’s league-wide age requirement served as a kind of illegal group boycott.

In response, the NFL argued that the league’s age restraint was exempt from antitrust scrutiny simply because it was a subject eligible for collective bargaining and hence was subject only to assessment below labor law.

Following reviewing celebration briefs and hearing oral arguments, the U.S. District Court determined in favor of Clarett.  Judge Shira Scheindlin penned a decision filled with football analogies, and like the well-known line that the NFL age necessity “must be sacked.”

As a outcome, both Clarett and Williams declared their eligibility for the 2004 NFL draft.

Nevertheless, Clarett’s legal victory was brief-lived, as the decision was reversed on appeal by a three judge panel that incorporated now Supreme Court justice Sonia Sotomayor.

As a outcome, neither Maurice Clarett nor Mike Williams have been in the long run permitted to enter the NFL that season.

Generating matters worse, the NCAA also denied Williams the chance to return to college football.

The NCAA’s inner assessment procedure concluded that misplaced his collegiate eligibility when he relied on the district court selection in Clarett, hired an agent, and had declared for the NFL draft.

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The NFL Age Necessity Was Briefly "Sacked" Ten Many years In the past Nowadays