As students at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, we were well aware that the Wilmer Eye Institute, our ophthalmology clinic, was considered the finest in the world. People would come from across the globe for to have specialty evaluation and to be given their sight back.
But beyond the individual treatment, we heard that our professor, Dr. Alfred Sommers had just stumbled upon a dramatic finding, demonstrating that very small amounts of Vitamin A given to children and women to prevent night-blindness in Indonesia, also resulted in enormous reductions in infant and maternal mortality . This ‘side effect’ of the Vitamin A micronutrient supplementation, was among the great public health discoveries of the latter half of the 20th Century, and Dr. Sommers became the Dean of the Blooomberg School of Public Health at Hopkins, and went on to have an broad impact across a spectrum of epidemiological problems.
I was reminded of that connection of mine this week, when I read the inspired article in the NY Times about Dr. Sanduk Ruit, another great physician, and his revolutionary simplification of cataract surgery that has allowed him to personally cure over 100,000 Nepalese of blindness from cataracts. Using simplified surgical techniques he developed and low cost lenses he produces, costing approximately $25 per eye, he is able to surgically cure blindness for a fraction of the cost of such treatments in the developed world. Read more of his inspiring story >>>>NY TIMES ARTICLE HERE<<<.
And consider giving to his cause ….to allow his treatment strategy to be used on a global scale to give the miraculous gift of site. GIVE HERE<<<<