Dr. Basil Hetzel

Impactful medical researcher

Hetzel studied medicine at the University of Adelaide from 1940 to 1944. He was granted reserved occupation status as a medical student during World War II. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar in the 1950s, including an appointment at New York Hospital. In 1954, Hetzel and his family traveled to London where he undertook a Research Fellowship in the Department of Endocrinology and Metabolism at St Thomas’ Hospital. Hetzel worked in remote areas of Papua New Guinea with the Public Health Department of the then Territory. His research concluded that the endemic goiter and associated cretinism were attributable to an iodine-deficient diet. He also demonstrated that dietary supplementation would entirely prevent these illnesses. In the 1980s Hetzel, supported by the Australian Agency for International Development, became an international advocate for iodine supplementation, which is now taken for granted with iodinated table salt.