Saving millions of minds

3 November 2005

World-renowned endocrinologist, Professor Cres Eastman, was recently featured on ABC TV’s science program Catalyst.

The program showed how Eastman’s work has played a critical role in what is described as the most significant public health advance this century.

Cres has been fighting Iodine Deficiency Disorder (IDD) throughout China, Malaysia, Indonesia and remote parts of Tibet since the mid 1980s.

IDD is the most common preventable cause of brain damage in the world today, resulting in varying degrees of mental and physical retardation. Globally, 2.2 billion people live in areas with some measure of iodine deficiency.

Eastman and his team have worked in some of the hardest and roughest terrain on the earth, to villages where IDD has gone unchecked for generations and where innocent victims suffer from the horrific legacy of an iodine-deficient diet.

Go to Catalyst: The Man Who Saved a Million Brains - ABC TV Science for a full transcript.