Alfredo A. Sadun, MD, PhD, Featured in New Book About Cuba’s Blindness Epidemic

In “Cuba’s Epidemic of Blindness: How Yankees Solved Castro’s Medical Mystery,” a gripping new book that reads like a mystery novel, author M. Bruce Shields tells the true story of how Alfredo A. Sadun, MD, PhD, helped uncover the causes of Cuba’s optic neuropathy outbreak in the early 1990s.

After several years of research, Fidel Castro’s research team in Cuba initially concluded the cause of the epidemic was a virus. However, after reaching out to the international community to seek additional support, Dr. Sadun was one of the physician-scientists tapped to fly to Havana. As Dr. Sadun began investigating, he came to the conclusion that a virus was not the cause, rather it was deficiencies in Cubans’ diet. Soon thereafter, a nationwide supplement program of folic acid and other B vitamins was rolled out and led to the end of the years-long epidemic.

This thrilling true story is just one example of the tremendous contributions Dr. Sadun has made to help further the conservation, improvement, and restoration of human eyesight.

If you are interested in reading the book, it is available for purchase on Amazon.