Interview with Professor Basil Hetzel AC – CSIRO’s first Chief of the Division of Human Nutrition

Abstract

Professor Basil Hetzel graduated from the University of Adelaide with a Bachelor of Medicine in 1944, and after winning a Fulbright Scholarship in New York returned to Adelaide to become the first Professor of Medicine at The Queen Elizabeth Hospital. There he began his transformational research linking iodine deficiency with intellectual disability and deformities in infants, which had a profound impact on global public health. Professor Hetzel’s research was driven by a desire to implement a socially responsible and preventative approach to health and medicine, and after being incorporated into the international public health practices of the World Health Organisation and UNICEF his findings continue to directly benefit more than two billion people at risk of IDD in 130 countries. In 1990 Professor Hetzel was awarded the Companion of the Order of Australia (AC) in recognition of his achievements in service to global health.