Abstract
ALTHOUGH specification for the assay of vitamin D2 by the chick method exists (London : British Standards Institution : B.S.S.911) there is none pertaining to assay on rats, the test animals used in many different laboratories. The Society of Public Analysts and Other Analytical Chemists, and the Society of Chemical Industry therefore set up a joint committee to determine "the fiducial limits that might reasonably be expected in biological assays of vitamin D using rats". British organisations employing this technique were asked to submit statements and opinions based on their own experience, and as a result of the information so collected the joint committee has now issued the following statement : "In the absence of any special circumstances, it is reasonable to expect that assays of vitamin D by the rat method in normal commercial practice should have fiducial limits (calculated to a probability level of 95 per cent) not wider than 60-170 per cent"; and the opinion is expressed that "the result of any assay conforming to these limits should be a commercially acceptable estimate of the true potency of the material assayed". Fuller details are being presented by the committee in the Analyst and in Chemistry and Industry.
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Vitamin D Assay. Nature 162, 919 (1948). https://doi.org/10.1038/162919a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/162919a0