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The bizarre controversy over the existence of a dwarf ape-like creature dubbed the ‘hobbit’ of Flores has drawn attention to the very real tragedy of iodine deficiency which still affects millions of people.

The controversy surrounding the discovery of the fossilised remains on a remote Indonesian island in 2004 has led to one of the most heated anthropological debates in recent history.And in a new chapter to the debate, Emeritus Professor Charles Oxnard recently published a paper with Peter J. Obendorf and Ben J. Kefford that questions whether the Flores hobbit was really just a dwarf cretin and not a new species of human.

Professor Oxnard’s paper was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society in March 2008. It argues that there is a significant amount of anatomical, circumstantial and environmental evidence to support the hypothesis that the Flores Hobbit was, in fact, a cretin.

Since that paper, Oxnard has examined seven skulls and six complete skeletons of cretins in European museums.

“The cretins have many features that look like those of apes and fossils (australopithecines) and that could be thought, therefore, to be primitive,” he says. “But these features are actually due to the complexly delayed growth patterns. These are precisely the characters found in the 18,000-year-old hobbit.

“All this leads to the possibility that the fossils were the cretinous offspring of iodine-deficient human mothers.”

The most important finding to arise from this research, according to Professor Oxnard, is the re-awakening of the developed world to the complications caused by iodine deficiency, which affects many millions of people.

“Nearly a billion people live in iodine-deficient regions, including South America, Africa, China and large parts of South East Asia,” he says. “As a result, more than hundreds of millions of people have iodine deficiency goitre, and many tens of millions of their children have developed the much greater human tragedy of cretinism.”

As well as that, very recent surveys of developed countries (including Australia) are showing that iodine deficiency has become increasingly present in recent years. For instance, up to 19 per cent of children in NSW have reductions in iodine levels and, though this is not florid cretinism, it is resulting in significant reductions in their IQ, and fewer numbers of gifted children.

An even greater tragedy, according to Professor Oxnard, is that the treatment of these conditions is inexpensive and easy to administer – but it is not being implemented.

“Doctors know what to do; governments know what to mandate; and budgets can easily afford it,” he says. “Yet even today, prevention and treatment just do not reach many poor, and often indigenous, people in such regions. And in some areas of developed countries, iodine deficiency is increasing rather than decreasing.”

(The paper presented in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, 5 March 2008, is entitled: “Are the small human-like fossils found on Flores human endemic cretins?” Peter J. Obendorf, Charles E. Oxnard and Ben J. Kefford. Proc. Roy. Soc. Series B: Biological Sciences. Professor Oxnard’s presented the new information in his plenary lecture on ‘The Anatomy of Cretinism’ at the Australasian Society of Human Biology meeting in Adelaide in December 2008).

Media references

Emeritus Professor Charles Oxnard , (+61 8) 6488 8643