In North America and Europe, many consider diarrhea to be more of a nuisance than a large-scale health problem. On the contrary, the scope and impact of the disease worldwide is truly astounding. Diarrhea is the world’s most common illness and the second leading cause of death among children under five years of age, greater than the number of childhood deaths caused by AIDS, measles, and malaria combined (exceeded only by pneumonia).1
Tim, along with his wife Bimla, a native of Northern India, worked around the clock to formulate an unconventional solution to an intractable problem. Tim poured over reams of statistical data about pediatric diarrhea in developing countries like India, and one salient fact captured his attention: children up to six months of age evidenced a substantially lower rate of pediatric diarrhea than children from six months to one year and above. He explains:
Rather than studying traditional molecular, biologic, or pharmaceutical remedies, Tim shifted his inquiry to immunology, asking what if he could formulate an inexpensive food based therapeutic that could be administered orally to reach the gastrointestinal tract.