Alfred Sommer, dean of the Johns Hopkins
Bloomberg School of Public
Health, is this year's recipient of the prestigious
Pollin Prize for Pediatric Research. Sommer's
groundbreaking discoveries led to the widespread use of
inexpensive vitamin A supplements that reduced childhood
mortality by 34 percent in the developing world, saving
millions of children's lives. The World Bank ranked vitamin
A supplementation among the most cost-effective health
interventions in all of medicine. Sommer was presented with
the Pollin Prize on Dec. 17 at a reception at New
York-Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.
The Pollin Prize, which recognizes outstanding
achievement in pediatric research, includes a $100,000
research award for the honoree and a $100,000 fellowship
stipend awarded by the recipient to a young investigator
working in a related area.
Sommer selected Parul Christian, an associate
professor in the Bloomberg School's
Department of
International Health and
Center for
Human Nutrition. For the past decade, Christian has
explored new links between the nutritional deficiencies of
mothers and increased infant mortality in the developing
world. Recently, she has been working in Bangladesh and
Nepal on studies examining the improvements in infant
survival with maternal vitamin A and beta-carotene
supplementation and maternal supplementation of multiple
micronutrients.
"It is a great honor to receive the Pollin Prize and
to be recognized for my role in improving the health of
children. However, there is much more to be done," Sommer
said. "More than 10 million children die worldwide each
year, and the underlying cause of many of these deaths is
malnutrition. I applaud efforts like the Pollin Prize that
assist and encourage a new generation of researchers, like
Parul Christian, to pursue the important discoveries that
will continue to save the lives of millions of children
around the world."
"When I see a baby born in Nepal weighing barely three
pounds in settings where it is impossible to survive, I
feel very sad. It's unfair that in huge parts of the world
so many women and children are dying because of
malnutrition," Christian said. "I hope that what I'm doing
will help them in the future."
While working in Indonesia during the 1970s, Sommer
discovered that mild vitamin A deficiency, which causes the
progressive eye disorders xerophthalmia and keratomalacia,
also dramatically increased childhood morbidity and
mortality from infectious diseases, particularly measles
and diarrhea. He also discovered that vitamin A
supplementation in children in the developing world reduced
measles fatalities by 50 percent and overall childhood
mortality by one-third. Despite widespread criticism of his
discoveries from the scientific community, Sommer continued
to research his theories and later documented that a large
oral dose of vitamin A, costing a few pennies, was a more
effective and affordable means of treating vitamin A
deficiency than injections. Today the oral dose is the
recommended standard of the World Health Organization, and
the control of vitamin A deficiency is included in the
United Nations' Declaration of the Rights of Children.
UNICEF and the WHO estimate that more than 1 million
children would die of infection or become blind each year
without vitamin A intervention programs that now operate in
more than 60 countries. According to UNICEF, more than 400
million capsules of vitamin A were administered to children
in 2002, saving the lives of more than 250,000 children
worldwide that year alone.
Sommer is the first individual researcher to receive
the Pollin Prize. Previously, the award has gone to teams
of researchers. Nathaniel F. Pierce, a professor at the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was a
co-recipient of the Pollin Prize in 2002 for his work on
the development of oral rehydration therapy.
The Pollin Prize is the only international award
honoring advances in children's health care. Established by
philanthropists Irene and Abe Pollin, co-owners of the
Washington Wizards basketball team, the award is designed
to encourage young investigators to continue to address
children's health issues worldwide. The award is
administered by New York-Presbyterian Hospital.