- Person
- Baruch Blumberg
- Lived
- 1925–2011
- Field
- Medicine
- From
- American
The story
Blumberg's research revealed something new about infectious disease: a person could carry the hepatitis B virus for years, often without feeling ill, and still be able to pass it on. The Nobel committee in 1976 described this chronic carrier state as one of the important new principles his work had clarified. It also noted that not every carrier is contagious, and that modern tests could tell the difference.
Blumberg knew that the discovery had a shadow side. Identifying people who carried hepatitis B for life could lead others to fear them. Instead of a victory lap, he devoted his 1976 Nobel lecture to bioethics, predicting that the discovery of the carrier state would lead to calls to exclude and quarantine chronic carriers and to deny them health care. He came down firmly on the side of their liberty, and stated that in medical practice it was better not to test for the condition.
His warning soon proved accurate. The following year the teachers' union in New York City moved to exclude known carriers from the city's schools. At the time, developmentally disabled children who had lived at the Willowbrook State School were being moved into public schools, and as part of hepatitis experiments carried out there, most had been tested without their consent and more than 50 carriers identified. A panel convened by the city's public health department decided to bar known carriers from school and to impose blood tests on their classmates without informed consent about the tests.
Blumberg, who had been left off that panel, advised the lawyers who challenged the policy on behalf of the excluded children. The litigation reversed the policy.
The case set an important precedent for how society would treat people with infectious diseases during the AIDS era that followed. Blumberg's position was that identifying an infection should serve prevention and treatment, not exclusion. Today the World Health Organization encourages testing so that people living with hepatitis B can be linked to care and treatment.
Why it matters
Blumberg's stand helped establish that people living with a chronic infection should not lose their rights to education and care because of fear.
About Baruch Blumberg
Physician and geneticist who discovered the hepatitis B virus, co-invented its blood test and vaccine, and shared the 1976 Nobel Prize, work credited with preventing millions of liver cancers.
More about Baruch Blumberg
- Baruch Blumberg's blood test made transfusions saferBaruch Blumberg and Irving Millman developed a blood test for hepatitis B. Blood banks began screening donations with it in 1971, cutting transfusion infections.
- Baruch Blumberg found hepatitis B and its vaccineBaruch Blumberg identified the hepatitis B virus, developed its blood test and vaccine, and won the 1976 Nobel Prize. A colleague said he prevented more cancer deaths than anyone.
- Blumberg's vaccine cut child hepatitis B in China to 1%After hepatitis B vaccination was rolled out in China, infection among children fell from about 15 percent to about 1 percent within ten years, a measure of Baruch Blumberg's legacy.
- Baruch Blumberg championed the Hepatitis B FoundationBaruch Blumberg gave his personal support to the Hepatitis B Foundation from its start in the early 1990s and served as its distinguished scholar until his death in 2011.
- Baruch Blumberg licensed his vaccine for the worldBaruch Blumberg and Irving Millman patented a new way to make a hepatitis B vaccine, then made sure it was licensed so drug companies could produce it for the public.
Sources
- Baruch Samuel Blumberg Wikipedia
- The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1976: press release NobelPrize.org
- Hepatitis B fact sheet World Health Organization
Another act of tikkun olam. This is part of tikkun olam, the Jewish idea of repairing the world, and every one of us can add to it.