Calamine the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines for being one of the most effective and safe medicines needed in a health system. Calamine is available over the counter as a generic medication. The wholesale cost in the developing world is about US$0.25–3.85 per 100-ml bottle. In the United Kingdom, it costs the National Health Service about £0.44. Calamine is used to treat itchiness. This includes from sunburn, insect bite, or other mild skin conditions. Calamine is mixed with either zinc oxide (ZnO) with about 0.5% ferric oxide (FeO) or a zinc carbonate compound. Calamine lotion is a component of
Iron ore iron-making blast furnaces. Iron ore is the raw material used to make pig iron, which is one of the main raw materials to make steel—98% of the mined iron ore is used to make steel. Indeed, it has been argued that iron ore is "more integral to the global economy than any other commodity, except perhaps oil". Metallic iron is virtually unknown on the surface of the Earth except as iron-nickel alloys from meteorites and very rare forms of deep mantle xenoliths. Although iron is the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust, comprising about 5%, the vast majority