ROME (AP) — Augusto Odone, a former World Bank economist who defied scientists to invent a treatment to save his child's life, has died in his native Italy. He was 80.
His daughter Cristina Odone says her father died Thursday after suffering organ failure precipitated by a lung infection.
Odone's battle to help his son Lorenzo was depicted in a 1992 movie, "Lorenzo's Oil," with Nick Nolte playing the elder Odone.
Lorenzo was diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy, a neurological disease, when he was 6. Doctors predicted he would die in childhood. But Augusto and his wife Michaela relentlessly sought treatment.
Augusto Odone taught himself enough science to formulate a concoction derived from natural cooking oils for Lorenzo. Studies later suggested the oil appears to delay symptoms.
Lorenzo died in 2008 at age 30.
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