Dr. Wolf Szmuness (born 1919)

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Wolf Szmuness (March 12, 1919 – June 6, 1982) was a Polish-born epidemiologist who emigrated to and worked in the United States. He conducted research at the New York Blood Center and, from 1973, he was director of the Center's epidemiology laboratory. He designed and conducted the trials for the first vaccine to prove effective against hepatitis B.[1][2]

European beginnings

Szmuness was born in Warsaw, Poland on 12 March 1919. He studied medicine in Italy, but he returned to be with his family around the Nazi German invasion of Poland in 1939. As the Germans and Soviets occupied Poland, Szmuness was separated from his family, who were later killed by the Germans. Trapped in the Communist-occupied part of Poland, Szmuness traveled eastward to escape the advancing Nazis. He asked the Soviets to let him fight the Germans but was sent to Siberia as a prisoner.

Following a year of hard labour in the prison camp, Szmuness was appointed head of sanitary conditions. He later became the head epidemiologist in the local district. After release from detention in 1946, Szmuness completed his medical education at the University of Tomsk in Siberia, and earned a degree in epidemiology from the University of Kharkov.

Szmuness married a Russian woman, Maya, and in 1959 was allowed to return to Poland. There, he continued his education at the University of Lublin and worked as an epidemiologist in municipal and regional health departments.

Szmuness's colleague Aaron Kellner reports that the Polish authorities granted Szmuness a vacation at a rest home, where he shared a room with a Catholic priest, Karol Wojtyła, and began a longtime correspondence with him. Karol Wojtyła would later become Pope John Paul II.

Emigration and life in the United States

In 1969, Szmuness, his wife and their daughter Helena were permitted to attend a scientific meeting in Italy. Upon arriving, Szmuness defected and emigrated to New York City in the United States for religious and political reasons. Through the intervention of Walsh McDermott, a professor of public health at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, Szmuness was hired by the New York City Blood Center. Because doctors from abroad are not usually accredited in the United States, Szmuness began as a laboratory technician, but his skills were quickly recognized, and, within two years, Szmuness headed his own lab. A separate department of epidemiology at the Center was created for him, and he also became a full professor at the Columbia University School of Public Health. According to Aaron Kellner, President of the Center, within five years of arriving in New York, Szmuness became "an international figure in epidemiology and the field of hepatitis".[1]

Szmuness died of lung cancer in 1982.

[Hepatitis B vaccine]

Szmuness first became interested in the hepatitis B virus when his wife, Maya, was nearly killed by the liver disease caused by the virus,[1] which she contracted through a blood transfusion. In New York, Szmuness investigated the natural history of hepatitis B. A vaccine was produced in the late 1970s, and Szmuness designed and conducted vaccine trials to determine its efficacy. Over 1000 male homosexuals participated in the trials; they were chosen as participants because they "had been found to have a risk of developing hepatitis B that is 10 times greater than that for the population in general".[1]

AIDS Theory

A highly controversial theory suggested that HIV-contaminated Hepatitis B vaccine trials in 1978 were responsible for the original spread of AIDS in the United States by infecting gay men in New York City with HIV. Evidence as to the presence of HIV in Szmuness's lab, or a mechanism for this introduction have not been offered, and scientific data strongly suggests that HIV instead first came to the United States with Haitian immigrants around 1969, many years prior to trials conducted on the [Hepatitis B vaccine].[3]

References


1982 (June 08) - NYTimes : "DR. WOLF SZMUNESS IS DEAD AT 63; AN EPIDEMIOLOGIST AND RESEARCHER"

By Lawrence K. Altman / June 8, 1982 / Also see Dr. Wolf Szmuness (born 1919) / Source : [HN0214][GDrive]

[Dr. Wolf Szmuness (born 1919)], a Polish-born epidemiologist who spent 10 years in a Siberian labor camp and who later designed the New York Blood Center studies that documented the efficacy of the first [Hepatitis B vaccine], died Sunday at his home in Flushing, Queens, after a long illness. He was 63 years old.

Dr. Szmuness joined the New York Blood Center in 1969 and had headed its laboratory of epidemiology since 1973. He was in charge of the hepatitis B vaccine field trials that began in 1978 and that were conducted among 1,083 male homosexuals. That group was selected because homosexuals had been found to have a risk of developing hepatitis B that is 10 times greater than that for the population in general.

Dr. Szmuness' interest in finding a prevention for hepatitis, a potentially fatal liver infection, arose when his wife, Maya, had a near-fatal attack in the Soviet Union in the early 1950's. She developed hepatitis as a complication of blood transfusions given during gall bladder surgery. 'Imagination and Self-Discipline'

June Goodfield, a scientist who is writing a book about Dr. Szmuness and seven other researchers, described him yesterday as ''a man who combined the most beautiful imagination, tempered by the most rigid self-discipline to the point of obsessiveness.''

Dr. Aaron Kellner, president of the New York Blood Center, said Dr. Szmuness had ''a mind that worked like a steel trap, a mind that is clear, that directs proper questions, that is capable of finding answers to those questions in a clear, unambiguous fashion.''

Dr. Kellner also said Dr. Szmuness had ''an impeccable, toughminded honesty. He didn't fool himself. His experiments either demonstrated what they were supposed to do or they were discarded and other experiments were designed.''

Wolf Szmuness was born in Warsaw on March 12, 1919. After studying medicine in Italy, he returned to Poland to join his family at the outset of World War II. But one day, he was trapped in the fighting while he was with friends in one part of Warsaw. He did not see his family thereafter. Asked to Fight Nazis

Moving eastward, he kept just a step ahead of the frontier. He crossed the Russian border and asked to fight the Nazis, but instead he was sent to a labor camp in Siberia. After a period of hard physical labor, he was put in charge of sanitary conditions in the camp and later of epidemiology in the area.

In 1950, after his release from the labor camp, he received a medical degree from the University of Tomsk. In 1955, he received an advanced scientific degree from the University of Kharkov.

He returned to Poland and received another advanced scientific degree from the University of Lublin in 1964. In 1968, he left Poland for religious and political reasons.

He arrived in New York in 1968 with his wife, his daughter and $700. He divided his time between visits to employment agencies and medical libraries. While Dr. Szmuness was sitting in the library at the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center, he was paged by Dr. Walsh McDermott, a leader in public health. Swift Rise From Technician

While Dr. Szmuness was in his office, Dr. McDermott called Dr. Kellner for help in finding Dr. Szmuness a job. Dr. Kellner said no positions were available for an epidemiologist. Soon afterward, Dr. Szmuness accepted his only opportunity, an offer to become a medical technician at the New York Blood Center.

''Within a few months it was perfectly apparent that Wolf was capable of being far more than someone else's technical assistant,'' Dr. Kellner told Miss Goodfield. ''Within a few months he was designing his own experiments. Within two years, he had his own laboratory. Within five, he was an international figure in epidemiology and the field of hepatitis.''

Beginning in 1971, Dr. Szmuness did a series of epidemiological experiments that furthered the scientific understanding of the natural history of the disease. By the time a vaccine was available, he had prepared the groundwork for testing it.

''Szmuness was clearly the man to do'' the vaccine trials, Dr. Kellner said. ''Indeed, he was almost the only man to do it.'' His studies are now considered classics in the field.

Dr. Szmuness is survived by his wife and his daughter, Helena of London. Funeral services will be held today at 1 P.M. at Parkside Memorial Chapel, 98-60 Queens Boulevard, in Forest Hills, Queens.