Karl Überla

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Karl Überla (born January 29, 1935 in Leitmeritz , Czechoslovakia ) is a German epidemiologist . Until his retirement he worked as a professor at the Institute for Medical Information Processing, Biometry and Epidemiology (IBE) at the Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich. From 1974 to 2004 he was director of the institute.

Scientific career

From 1954 to 1960 he studied at the Universities of Heidelberg , Munich (LMU), Innsbruck and Freiburg medicine . From 1957 to 1962 he studied psychology at the University of Freiburg . There he passed his medical state examination in 1960 and was awarded a Dr. med. PhD . After the main examination for psychologists in 1962 at the University of Freiburg, he received his license to practice medicine in 1963 . From 1962 to 1963 he was visiting professor at the Laboratory for Personality Assessment and Group Behavior at the University of Illinois in the USA. From 1964 to 1968, he worked as a research assistant at the Institute for Medical Statistics and Documentation at the University of Mainz . In 1968 he received his habilitation for medical statistics and documentation in Mainz . In 1968 and 1973 he held a chair for medical statistics, documentation and data processing at Ulm University . At the same university he was dean of the faculty for theoretical medicine from 1971 to 1972 and vice-rector from 1972 to 1973 . From 1974 to 2004 he held the chair for medical information processing, biometrics and epidemiology at the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich. In 1979 he was awarded the Paul Martini Prize .

From 1981 to 1985 Karl Überla was President of the Federal Health Office (BGA). During this time he was given partial leave from the IBE. Due to conflicts of interest with various consulting activities for the pharmaceutical industry and grants from the Association of the Cigarette Industry (VdC) to a company he ran, he had to resign on April 15, 1985. His successor was Dieter Großklaus .

In 1992 he initiated the postgraduate course in Public Health and Epidemiology at the Medical Faculty of the LMU. Today, differentiated courses of study are carried out under the title Pettenkofer School of Public Health . From 1994 to 2000 he was the spokesman for the Munich Research Association and, since 1997, of the Bavarian Research Association Public Health, which was funded by the BMBF in 20 extensive projects.

From 2002 to 2005 he was a member of the board of the TMF - technology and method platform for networked medical research in Berlin. Projects in various medical fields were carried out there such as intestinal diseases, leukemia, lymphomas, pediatric oncology, heart diseases, depression, Parkinson's, schizophrenia and stroke. Überla was editor of the GMDS Medical Informatics, Biometry and Epidemiology series with 90 volumes from 1975 to 2006.

Influence of the association of the cigarette industry

During his time as President of the Federal Health Office, Überla was also head of the GIS (Society for Information Processing and Statistics in Medicine), a private research institution. In 1982, the Association of the Cigarette Industry commissioned the GIS to conduct a study on passive smoking and lung cancer . For this, the GIS received a total of around 2 million  DM from the VdC. According to a report by the Center for Tobacco Control Research and Education in San Francisco , Überla was arguably the main health authority with which the tobacco industry was allied during the 1980s.

As President of the BGA, Überla ensured at least once that an official statement from the Federal Health Office was not detrimental to the tobacco industry. He changed an assessment made by his employees about passive smoking in writing in favor of the tobacco industry. The conclusions of the BGA report on lung cancer in people who were exposed to secondhand smoke thus became hypotheses . “Proven results” became “described results”. The well- founded assumption that passive smoking negatively influences and chronically damages lung function and increases the risk of lung cancer in non-smokers , Überla deleted. After it was processed, secondhand smoke was referred to only as "nuisance", not as a dangerous substance.

Überla was also involved as BGA president in the so-called coumarin affair in 1982. Coumarin was banned as an additive in tobacco products. The tobacco industry, on the other hand, wanted to use coumarin as a flavor enhancer for "light" cigarettes . The VdC argued that in the tests at the Max von Pettenkofer Institute of the BGA, the dosage was "unnaturally high". A view that Überla shared.

Publications

Überla can refer to more than 330 publications in the fields of epidemiology , biometrics and medical informatics . Below is a selection of his most important publications.

Books

  • Factor Analysis: A systematic introduction for psychologists, medical professionals, economists and social scientists. Springer-Verlag, 1971, ISBN 978-3-642-61985-4 .
  • Hans-Konrad Selbmann, Karl Überla, Reinald Greiller: Alternatives to medical data processing. Springer-Verlag, 1976, 175 pp.

Technical article

  • Model studies on the usability of the analysis of variance on time-effect curves. In: Medicines Research. 18: 71-77 (1968).
  • Methodological Considerations for Phase 1 Studies. In: Advances in Clinical Pharmacology. 13: 195-208 (1977).
  • Problems between computer science and medicine - the user's point of view. In: Computer Science Spectrum. Vol. 2 (1979), pp. 4-11.
  • For the scientific determination of safety and risk. In: Günter Rohrmoser , Elke Lindenlaub (Hrsg.): Progress and Security. Schattauer, Stuttgart / New York 1980, pp. 61-69.
  • Randomized Clinical Trials: Why not? In: Controlled Clinical Trials . Vol. 1 (1981), pp. 295-303.
  • Unequal standards in medicine. In: Münchner Medizinische Wochenschrift . 124: 9, 13-15 (1982).
  • The quality of the experience in medicine. In: Münchner Medizinische Wochenschrift . Vol. 1982, H. 46, pp. 18-21.
  • Possibilities and limits of influencing quality in medicine. In: Medicine, People and Society. Vol. 7 (1982), H. 2, pp. 115-121.
  • Environmental precaution and health. Lecture on October 12, 1984 in Berlin. In: Federal Environment Agency texts. 1984, H. 25, pp. 81-96.
  • Perspectives on self-medication. In: Self-medication in the FRG 1984. Ed. By the Federal Association of Drug Manufacturers. Pp. 75-86.
  • Lung cancer from passive smoking: hypothesis or convincing evidence? In: International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health. Vol. 59 (1987), H. 5, pp. 421-437, doi: 10.1007 / BF00377837 .
  • Methodological Concepts: What could we know and what should we know in drug epidemiology? In: Helmut Kewitz , Ivar Roots, Karlheinz Voigt (eds.): Epidemiological Concepts in Clinical Pharmacology. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 1987, pp. 23-33.
  • Karl Überla, Wilfried Ahlborn: Passive smoking and lung cancer: A re-analysis of Hirayamas data. 1987. Bates No. 401031174/1180 ( online ).
  • Karl Überla, Wilfried Ahlborn: Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer: Re-analyzes of Hirayama's Data . In: Indoor and Ambient Air Quality. Selper, London 1988, pp. 169-78.
  • Karl Überla, Wilfried Ahlborn: Passive Smoking and Lung Cancer: A Reanalysis of Hirayama's Data. In: International Archives of Occupational and Environmental Health: Indoor Air Quality Supplement. Springer, Berlin / Heidelberg 1990, pp. 333-41, doi: 10.1007 / 978-3-642-83904-7_39 .
  • Boundaries of Perception and Knowledge for Risk Assessment in Epidemiology. In: International Journal of Epidemiology. Vol. 19 (1990), H. 3, pp. 81-83, doi: 10.1093 / ije / 19.Supplement_1.S81 .
  • Karl Überla, Reinhold Haux, Thomas Tolxdorff: Recommendations on the tasks, organization and equipment of the service areas for medical information processing (clinical data centers) and the institutes for medical informatics in the clinics and medical faculties of the FRG. In: Medicine and Biology. Vol. 28 (1997), H. 1, pp. 24-45.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Überla, Karl , uni-freiburg.de ( Memento of 11 June 2007 at the Internet Archive )
  2. ↑ Prof. Dr. med. Dipl. Psych. Karl Überla , Ludwig Maximilians University ( Memento from March 29, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  3. ^ Research project of the VdC, March 20, 1985, Bates No. 2000511408/1436.
  4. ↑ a b c A. Bornhäuser, J. McCarthy, SA Glantz: German tobacco industry's successful efforts to maintain scientific and political respectability to prevent regulation of secondhand smoke. In: Tobacco Control . Volume 15, number 2, April 2006, ISSN  1468-3318 , p. E1 , doi : 10.1136 / tc.2005.012336 , PMID 16565444 , PMC 2563568 (free full text).
  5. ↑ a b K. Andresen, K. Schwagrzinna: A case for the public prosecutor. Top drug inspector scandal. In Stern , March 14, 1985, pp. 38-44.
  6. ↑ Interview with Burkhard Junge conducted by Annette Bornhäuser on February 28, 2004 in Berlin, Germany
  7. ^ US Department of Health and Human Services Public Health Service. The health consequences of involuntary smoking: A report of the Surgeon General. , Rockville MD: US Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service; 1986.
  8. ^ Udo Ludwig: Secret ambassadors . In: Der Spiegel . No. 23 , 2005, pp. 156-158 ( online ).
personal data
SURNAME Überla, Karl
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German epidemiologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 29, 1935
PLACE OF BIRTH Leitmeritz