BMJ Medical Milestone Winner

We lost. No, we actually won. All of us have enjoyed a much healthier life because of sanitation, the winner of the BMJ online poll asking people to vote for the most important medical advance since 1840. Sanitation won with 15.8% of the votes. Here are the runners-up:

• Antibiotics – 14.5%
• Anaesthesia – 13.9%
• Vaccines – 11.8%
• Discovery of DNA structure 8.8%

Professor Johan Mackenbach of Erasmus University Medical Centre, Rotterdam, the Netherlands:

Inadequate sanitation is still a major problem in the developing world.

In 2001, unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene accounted for over 1.5 million deaths from diarrhoeal disease in low and middle-income countries.

Clearly, sanitation still plays a vital role in improving public health now and in the future.

BBC News, January 18, 2007
HT: Vital Votes, Photo: blmurch

Tags: sanitation, water, medical milestone, genetics, genes, dna, diseases, illness, health