Maurice Hilleman, Master in Creating Vaccines, Dies at 85
The Man Who Saved Your Life – Maurice R. Hilleman – Developer of Vaccines for Mumps and Pandemic Flu
The names Jenner, Pasteur, Salk and Sabin are likely to register with people. Not Hilleman. Even though he is the godfather of the modern vaccine era. Even though he has, in a career that has spanned six decades, developed nearly three dozen vaccines – more than any other scientist.Even though it is no exaggeration to assert, as many leading scientists do, that Maurice Hilleman has saved more lives than any other living scientist.
His credits include not only the preventive vaccine for mumps, but also vaccines for measles, rubella (German measles), chickenpox, bacterial meningitis, flu and hepatitis B. Every time an American mother takes her child to the doctor for a well-baby checkup, she likely encounters the fruits of Hilleman’s labor – vaccines that have put an end to longtime scourges of American childhood.
Many of the diseases that Hilleman’s vaccines helped bring under control have been all but forgotten by a well-immunized generation of Americans. But not that long ago in this country, these diseases not only kept children home from school, they also sent them to the hospital and even the cemetery. Today Hilleman’s measles vaccine alone prevents an estimated one million deaths around the globe every year.
[ via Linkmeister ]
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