Speaker nourishes health discussion

Author: Jamie Studwell

As part of last week's Global Health Symposium, renowned epidemiologist Dr. Alfred Sommer of the Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health gave an informal lecture on his research into the health benefits of vitamin A treatment in children of developing countries. Ophthalmology is Sommer's primary focus, but he is one of few eye doctors that can say his research has saved thousands, maybe even millions, of lives.

In the 1980s, Sommer took up the mantle of vitamin A research, growing a concern for its apparent connection with youth blindness. During his first trial, studying rates of mild and severe eye problems connected to vitamin A deficiency in Indonesia, he inadvertently stumbled upon a much larger correlation between vitamin A and mortality rates. The data revealed that many patients disappeared in the six months between Sommer's visits. Subsequent studies revealed that the more deficient a child was, the greater his or her likelihood of dying.

His research has, from its inception, been called "too ambitious" and his results "too good to be true," but Sommer has pushed for scientific consensus and is finally seeing results. Sommer's research indicates that the cumulative mortality rates of children receiving just a single dose of vitamin A every four to six months is on average 30 percent lower than those who do not receive treatment. This staggering statistic means that vitamin A treatment, which is one of the most cost effective treatments available at only $23 per death averted, is capable of preventing between one and 2.5 million deaths each year caused by illnesses related to the deficiency, such as diarrhea and the measles.

In a discussion after the conclusion of Sommer's formal lecture, two burning questions remained to be discussed: how does a scientist like Sommer reconcile himself morally with the fact that he is providing treatment for only half of his patients, and what is the source of this rampant vitamin A deficiency in developing countries? Sommer parried the moral question posed by with a scientist's pure rationality.

"I conduct research," he said. The only way to procure funding for treatments that have not yet yielded effective results is to conduct a research experiment, explained Sommer. Without the control group that does not receive medicine, it would be impossible to measure the results of the trial and thereby turn research into policy change. One must focus on the people receiving treatment in the name of research that would not have otherwise.

Sommer also claims that the title of the lecture was a misnomer because carrots are actually part of the problem. Vitamin A deficiency is linked not only to undernutrition in developing countries, but also to one's diet. While you or I receive our vitamin A from animal products, the diet of leafy vegetables and fruit consumed in Indonesia supplies children with beta carotene, which is metabolized into vitamin A at the extremely low rate of 21:1. This means that the children are physically incapable of ingesting enough vitamin A, and their diets must therefore be supplemented. Dr. Sommer insists that this is not just a case of changing nutritional habits, but a full-scale need for humanitarian efforts.