Donald A. Henderson

Donald Henderson, 2002

Donald Ainslie Henderson (born September 7, 1928 in Lakewood , Ohio - † August 19, 2016 in Towson , Maryland ) was an American medical scientist ( epidemiology ), who through his leading role in campaigns of the WHO in the 1960s and 1970s for Smallpox eradication became known.

Medical professionals involved in the smallpox eradication campaign in 1966 at the CDC , from left: Henderson, J. Donald Millar, John J. Witte, Leo Morris

Life

Henderson studied at Oberlin College ( bachelor's degree in 1950) and medicine at the University of Rochester , where he received his MD in 1954 . This was followed by specialist training (internship, residency) at the Mary Imogen Bassett Hospital in Cooperstown in New York . In 1960 he received his Masters in Public Health (MPH) from Johns Hopkins University (School of Hygiene and Public Health). From 1955 to 1957 and 1960 to 1966 he was at the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC, then Communicable Disease Center), where he led a group to monitor smallpox cases. From 1966 he headed the Smallpox Eradication Program , a global WHO program to eradicate smallpox (which was then common in Brazil, Africa and South Asia), and moved to Geneva. Under the program, he was involved in combating the last outbreak of the disease in Europe in Yugoslavia in 1972 and in combating the great smallpox epidemic in India in 1974. He was also instrumental in setting up a global immunization program on behalf of the WHO that vaccinated children against polio, among other things. The last case of smallpox was reported in Somalia in 1977 and the disease has since been considered eradicated.

From 1977 until his retirement in 1990 he was Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. In 1998 he was the founding director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies. He has also held senior positions as an advisor to the US government, e. B. 1991 to 1993 as Associate Director for Biology (Life Sciences) of the Office of Science and Technology Policy under the US President and then 1993 to 1995 as Senior Scientific Advisor to the Department of Health and Human Services (HSS) and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Health and head of the Council of Health Preparedness, where he dealt, among other things, with the defense against bioterrorism.

Henderson died in August 2016, aged 87, of complications from a hip fracture at Gilchrist Hospice in Towson, Maryland.

Honors

In 1976 he received the Ernst Jung Prize , in 1978 the Public Welfare Medal of the National Academy of Sciences , 1983 a Gairdner Foundation International Award , 1986 the National Medal of Science and membership of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences , in 1988 the Japan Prize , The Albert B. Sabin Gold Medal in 1994, the John Stearns Medal of the New York Academy of Medicine in 1995, the Edward Jenner Medal of the Royal Society of Medicine in 1996 , the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2002 and the Prince Mahidol Prize in 2014 . He has received multiple honorary doctorates and an honorary member of the New York Academy of Medicine.

literature

• David L. Heymann: Donald A. Henderson (1928-2016). In: Science . Volume 353, No. 6304, 2016, p. 1104, doi: 10.1126 / science.aai8854
• Joel Breman: Donald Ainslie Henderson (1928-2016). In: Nature . Volume 538, No. 7623, 2016, p. 42, doi: 10.1038 / 538042a

Web links

• The Donald A. Henderson Collection. Alan Mason Chesney Medical Archives, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions, 1999, archived from the original on April 3, 2013 ; accessed on August 21, 2016 (English). 
• Peter-Phillip Schmitt: Donald Henderson passed away: the scientist who eradicated smallpox . In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . August 22, 2016, ISSN  0174-4909 ( faz.net [accessed March 6, 2020]).

Individual evidence

1. ^ DA Henderson, the former dean of Bloomberg School of Public Health credited with eradicating smallpox, dies . The Baltimore Sun , August 20, 2016, accessed August 21, 2016.