Bataan Rice Enrichment Project
Series of feeding experiments in Bataan, Philippines
Bataan Rice Enrichment Project or the Bataan Experiment, was a collaborative research venture between American chemist Robert R. Williams and Juan Salcedo Jr. It was a series of feeding experiments conducted in municipalities in Bataan between 1947 and 1949. By the end of the experiments, it is shown that thiamine-enriched rice can reduce the cases of beriberi in the Philippines, which was the leading cause of deaths during those times.
Overview
The enrichment project came first as a plan in 1943. During this time, Salcedo, who had his studies at Columbia University, met American chemist Robert R. Williams, a well renowned scientist for his synthesis on vitamin B1 in 1935.
The Philippine Bureau of Health reported a relatively stable beriberi rate from the mid-1920s to 1940. However, after World War II, beriberi cases surged, becoming the second leading cause of death in 1946 and 1947. Infants accounted for a significant portion of these deaths.
At this time, Williams was disappointed by the agencies at the United Nations to further eradicate the rise of beriberi cases around the globe. Due to his previous failures in rice enrichment programs, Williams became desperate.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bataan Rice Enrichment Project” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.