Basil Hetzel
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Honorable Dr Basil Hetzel AC (born 1922) is an Australian medical researcher who has made a major contribution to combating iodine deficiency, a major cause of goitre and cretinism world wide.
[edit] Study and career
He graduated in medicine from the University of Adelaide in the 1940s and had a productive career as medical researcher, public health advocate and in administration:
-
- Reader and then Michell Professor of Medicine at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital, University of Adelaide
- Foundation Professor of Social and Preventive Medicine at Monash University
- first Chief of the CSIRO Division of Human Nutrition.
- with his team, he worked among the people of the mountains of Papua New Guinea with the Public Health Department of the then Territory and showed that goitre was due to iodine deficiency and building on that work that the associated form of severe mental retardation, cretinism, could be completely prevented by correction of the iodine deficiency before pregnancy.
- conducted a worldwide campaign to incorporate iodized salt into the diet of those communities where iodine is lacking, and where intellectual disability and deformity result.
- 1980s as a public health campaigner, supported by AusAID he convinced governments, the United Nations, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, the World Bank and community groups to provided funds and support. There is now a global partnership, the International Council for Control of Iodine Deficiency Disorders, which had achieved coverage of 70% of households by 2000.
In administration:
- University of South Australia Chancellor 1992–1998
- Lieutenant Governor of South Australia
- Chair of the University of South Australia's Bob Hawke Prime Ministerial Centre.
As a public educator, he:
- was the Australian Broadcasting Commission's 1971 Boyer Lecturer on Life & Health in Australia
- published Health and Australian Society through Penguin in 1974.
He says his deep personal Christian commitment has informed his life.
[edit] Honours
He has been widely honoured:
- National Trust as a National Living Treasure, 15 March 2004
- Doctor of the University, University of South Australia, 1999
- the Clinical Research Centre The Queen Elizabeth Hospital named as ‘The Basil Hetzel Institute for Medical Research’ on 5 October 2001
- Companion of the Order of Australia, 1990
- RSL Anzac Peace Prize, 1997.
- for his work in overcoming iodine deficiency, Dr Hetzel was honoured in China by appointment as Honorary Professor at the Tianjin Medical University, 1989
- Fulbright Research Scholarship, 1950s
