Epic Measures

The country’s top risk factors related to burden of disease were dietary risks, smoking, high body mass index, high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and physical inactivity. More than 678,000 deaths in 2010 were attributable to poor diet alone.

Murray and Lopez holed up in the barn in Maine, compiling data in marathon sessions, 6 a.m. to midnight, in order to refine their calculations for final submission. The World Development Report, subtitled “Investing in Health,” was published in June 1993. Woven throughout were burden-of-disease numbers, with the new concept of DALYs, disability-adjusted life years, introduced on page one. In eighteen months, with a budget of approximately $100,000, Murray, Lopez, and their collaborators had begun to transform our understanding of life and deat

To the family’s clinical observations in the Sahel, John added an experiment of his own design, giving rats with malaria intramuscular iron, which turned out to speed infection.