Alfred Sommer

Alfred Sommer.

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Alfred Sommer (2 October 1942–) is an American scientist who discovered that vitamin A deficiency dramatically contributes to increased childhood mortality and morbidity. Sommer found that providing children, especially those living in the developing world, with vitamin A tablets twice a year could drastically reduce the rate of childhood death and blindness. It is estimated that Sommer’s discovery and treatment have saved more than 12 million children from an early death, and they continue to save hundreds of thousands more people every year. Because of how cheap and easy it is to provide the biannual vitamin A supplements to those in need, the World Bank’s World Development Report declared Dr. Sommer’s vitamin A supplementation as one of the most cost effective of all health interventions. He has authored a number of books on public health and preventative care and is a highly cited researcher.

Vitamin A deficiency

Different forms of vitamin A.

His long-term, continuing research involves the cause, magnitude, consequences, and control of vitamin A deficiency and, most recently, those of related micronutrients. In a series of complex intervention trials Sommer conducted in Indonesia (1976-1980), he and his research team discovered that vitamin A deficiency was far more common than previously recognized, and that even mild vitamin A deficiency dramatically increases childhood mortality rates, primarily because this deficiency reduces resistance to infectious diseases such as measles and diarrhea. Parallel studies organized by Sommer with colleagues in Africa demonstrated that most cases of measles-associated pediatric blindness were also related to low vitamin A levels.

To prove these observations definitively, Sommer and his colleagues ran a number of large-scale, community-based, randomized trials from 1983 through 1992 and demonstrated the link between even mild vitamin A deficiency and pediatric mortality.

Moving from science to practice, Sommer next showed that the debilitating consequences of vitamin A deficiency could be effectively, quickly, and cheaply treated with oral high-dose vitamin A supplementation, and treatment did not require a sterile injectable preparation. As a result, the World Development Report (World Bank) declared vitamin A supplementation to be one of the most cost-effective of all health interventions.

The latest research by Dr. Sommer and his colleagues has shown that supplementing Nepalese women of childbearing age with vitamin A or beta-carotene can reduce maternal mortality by an average of 45 percent, and newborn vitamin A supplementation can reduce neonatal mortality by 20 percent.

Other work

In addition to blindness prevention Sommer has done important research into glaucoma and early childhood nutrition. His research interests also include public health and early childcare.

Books

• Epidemiology and Statistics for the Ophthalmologist
• Getting What We Deserve: Health and Medical Care in America
• Ten Lessons in Public Health : Inspiration for Tomorrow's Leaders
• Nutritional Blindness: Xerophthalmia and Keratomalacia