Nobel laureate Baruch S. Blumberg dies at 85

Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg, who shared the 1976 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine for discovering the hepatitis B virus, has died. He was 85.

 

George Blumberg said Wednesday that his father collapsed Tuesday at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., where he was giving a speech.

Blumberg shared the 1976 Nobel Prize with D. Carleton Gajdusek for their "discoveries concerning new mechanisms for the origin and dissemination of infectious diseases," according to the citation from the prize announcement that year by the Karolinska Institutet.

Gajdusek, who died in 2008, shared the prize for his work on so-called "slow viruses."

A full obituary will follow at latimes.com/obits.

-- Associated Press

 

Elizabeth Taylor: donations and memorial

Publicists for Elizabeth Taylor, who died Wednesday at 79, said a memorial service will be announced later, after a private family funeral this week.

Her family has requested that instead of flowers contributions can be made to the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation, c/o Derrick Lee, Reback Lee & Co., Inc., 12400 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 1275, Los Angeles, CA 90025, or online at http://www.elizabethtayloraidsfoundation.org.

Personal messages can be posted on a Facebook tribute page.

--Elaine Woo

 

Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, who became anti-abortion activist, dies at 84 [updated]

Dr. Bernard N. Nathanson, an early abortion rights champion who oversaw tens of thousands of the procedures before having a change of heart and becoming a prominent anti-abortion activist, has died in New York. He was 84.

Nathanson died Monday at his Manhattan home after a long fight with cancer, said his wife, Christine Reisner-Nathanson.

Nathanson was an obstetrician-gynecologist who in 1969 helped found the National Association for the Repeal of Abortion Laws, now called NARAL Pro-Choice America. When abortion was legalized in New York the following year, he became director of the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health, an abortion clinic.

He estimated that he oversaw about 75,000 abortions in the 1960s and '70s before turning away from abortion rights, his wife said.

It was while working at the abortion clinic that Nathanson said he developed misgivings about the procedure. He said the use of ultrasound images led to his change of heart.

After joining the anti-abortion movement, Nathanson lectured internationally. He was a frequent visitor to the Ronald Reagan White House and narrated the 1986 anti-abortion film "The Silent Scream," which graphically depicts the abortion of a 12-week-old fetus.

Nathan also produced "Eclipse of Reason," a film about a procedure opponents call partial-birth abortion, in which the fetus is partially extracted before being destroyed. He published several books, including an autobiographical account of his experiences.

His wife described him as a "real Renaissance man" and said he "had a lot of guts."

"When he was an abortion doctor he was seen as a pariah by the medical community, and when he went pro-life he was scorned by the women in the pro-abortion movement," she said.

Nathanson, born in New York to a Jewish family, converted to Catholicism in the late 1990s. He was baptized into the Catholic faith by the late Cardinal John J. O'Connor in a private ceremony.

He earned his bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a medical degree from McGill University in 1949.

He wrote in his memoir that he knew "every facet of abortion."

"I helped nurture the creature in its infancy by feeding it great draughts of blood and money," he wrote. "I guided it through its adolescence as it grew fecklessly out of control."

Besides his wife, Nathanson also is survived by a son, Joseph Nathanson.

[updated 8:06 p.m.] The complete Times obituary is here.

-- Associated Press

Christian J. Lambertsen, who developed early scuba system, dies at 93

Christian J. Lambertsen, a scientist and doctor who invented an underwater breathing system used by the military in World War II and later coined the "scuba" acronym by which such systems are widely known, has died. He was 93.

He died Feb. 11 at his home in Newtown Square, Pa., outside Philadelphia, Stuard Funeral Directors Inc. said Monday.

Lambertsen, born May 15, 1917, earned a bachelor's degree from Rutgers University. He began working on his breathing apparatus, using parts of anesthesia machines, even before he enrolled as a medical student at the University of Pennsylvania, according to medical school dean Arthur Rubenstein, who called him "one of our institution's most honored professors."

Lambertsen's background as a doctor, inventor and diver made him "the right man in the right place at the right time" for the development of an early version of the device later known as scuba or "self-contained underwater breathing apparatus, according to a July biography in "The Year In Special Operations."

In 1941, Lambertsen worked with the Army's Office of Strategic Services to establish special underwater forces deployed in Burma, and later worked with the Navy to train surface frogmen to become divers. During this service, Rubenstein said, Lambertsen made the first exit from and reentry into a submerged submarine, marking the beginning of modern underwater demolition teams.

Back at the University of Pennsylvania, he converted an abandoned altitude chamber into a laboratory for the study of undersea and aerospace environmental physiology. In 1968, he established the Institute for Environmental Medicine, which has studied oxygen toxicity, diving-related diseases and the effects of hypoxic response in humans, exploring how humans can live in hostile environments from the oceans to space and in extreme temperatures.

Lambertsen retired as institute director in 1987 but continued his research as a professor emeritus, studying how high-pressure oxygen therapy can help in treatment of diseases. In 1992, he patented inergen, a fire-suppression product now used in commercial buildings but developed initially to extinguish fires in submarines and spacecraft, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Among his many honors are the highest civilian awards from the Department of Defense and Coast Guard. In 2000, Navy SEALS proclaimed him "the father of U.S. combat swimming."

Lambertsen is survived by sons Christian, David, Richard, Bradley and six grandchildren.

-- Associated Press

One year ago: Dr. Ignacio Ponseti

An estimated 200,000 infants worldwide are born each year with clubfoot, in which a tight, deformed Achilles' tendon causes the foot to turn downward or sideways.

Dr. Ignacio Ponseti created a way to treat clubfoot without surgery, changing thousands of children's lives.

Ponseti would gently stretch and tug a child's foot into a closer approximation of the correct position, then place it in a toe-to-groin cast. The process would be repeated weekly for three to five weeks. Then, the child would be fitted with a brace that he or she -- girls are twice as likely to suffer the problem -- would wear 23 hours a day for three months. After that, the brace would be worn only at night and during naps for three more years.

By age 4, the clubfoot would be corrected.

Ponseti died a year ago at age 95. Read more about his work in The Times' obituary.

-- Times staff writer

Photo: Dr. Ignacio Ponseti is 1943. Credit: University of Iowa

Mildred Jefferson, anti-abortion activist, dies at 84

Mildred Jefferson, the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School and a nationally recognized leader of the anti-abortion movement, died Friday in Cambridge, Mass. She was 84.

Anne Fox, president of Massachusetts Citizens for Life, said Jefferson died after a recent illness.

Jefferson helped establish the National Right to Life Committee and was its at-large director when she died. She previously had served as the organization's president.

Jefferson was born in Pittsburg, Texas, in 1926, the daughter of a schoolteacher and a minister. She graduated from Texas College in Tyler and earned a master's degree from Tufts University in Medford, Mass.

Jefferson also had taught as an assistant clinical professor of surgery at Boston University Medical School.

-- Associated Press

One year ago: Lee N. Robins

Lee N. Robins was a sociologist and psychiatrist who helped refine ideas about the roots of abnormal behavior and mental illness. She died one year ago in St. Louis.

Robins demonstrated through her research that abnormal behavior during childhood was a better predictor of psychiatric problems later in life, rather than childhood social class or depression, as was the contemporary belief.

She was the first to show that many drug-addicted Vietnam War veterans spontaneously lost their addictions when they returned to the U.S., challenging notions of the irreversible nature of this form of addiction.

"Lee Robins is one of the giants of psychiatric epidemiology," said Kathleen Bucholz, a professor of psychiatry at Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine.

Robins was inspired by questions she asked as a child: Why did people do the things they did? Why did they behave violently? Above all, why did countries resort to war? It is fitting, then, that her primary contribution was the development of a structured interview, called the Diagnostic Interview Schedule, which allowed epidemiologists to evaluate patients reliably.

Her questions were so successful that the World Health Organization asked her to develop a multicultural version of the survey, which is now used internationally.

For more, read Lee N. Robins' obituary in The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Lee N. Robins. Credit: Washington University in St. Louis School of Medicine

One year ago: Dr. Mahlon Hoagland

Dr. Mahlon Hoagland, who died one year ago, helped unravel the mystery of how cells build proteins by discovering a molecule called tRNA that brings individual amino acids to growing protein chains. He spent the latter part of his career writing books that explained biology to the public.

In the early 1950s, Hoagland came to Massachusetts General Hospital, where he teamed up with Paul C. Zamecnik on research that led to their famed discovery. In 1960, their work was followed up by Nobel laureate Sydney Brenner, who discovered a molecule dubbed messenger RNA that carries genetic information from nuclear DNA to the ribosome.

"He and Zamecnik deserved to win the Nobel Prize for their fundamental work on tRNA," said biologist James Watson, who shared the Nobel with Francis Crick for discovering the structure of DNA.

Hoagland had always argued that teaching was as crucial to scientific advancement as research and had disparaged many textbooks as needlessly complicated. After retiring, he teamed with artist Bert Dodson to create "The Way Life Works," which combines whimsical watercolors with concise explanations of scientific discovery and received the American Medical Writers Book Award in 1996.

For more, read Dr. Mahlon Hoagland's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Mahlon Hoagland. Credit: Chris Christo / Worchester Telegram & Gazette

Edward James Olmos pays tribute to Dr. Frank Ryan

Actor Edward James Olmos, who had worked with Dr. Frank Ryan on the cosmetic surgeon's program to provide free removal of gang tattoos, left a voice mail Wednesday apologizing for being tied up on a movie set when Ryan's obituary was being reported. Olmos then left the following tribute to Ryan, 50, who died Monday in a single-car crash on Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu:

It is very sad. He was an incredible human being who gave so much to everyone. He was a very gifted doctor and did some extraordinary work on so many children and people.... All ages would come in and he would help them. He organized and structured [the tattoo removal program] so people could get that done. He has helped so many people. Thank you for taking the time to pay homage to him.

-- Valerie Nelson

 

One year ago: Mary B. Henry

Mary B. Henry, a civil rights activist and Los Angeles icon who died one year ago, would likely have been beaming if she had lived to see the passing of the historic healthcare legislation last year.

Henry, who fostered the rise of Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center from the ashes of the 1965 Watts riots, was honored by presidents, governors and mayors for her lifelong work to provide quality education and social services to the poor.

Her work on President Lyndon B. Johnson's War on Poverty task force led to the Head Start program that brings nutrition and early childhood education to inner-city children.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas remembered her as a tireless advocate for quality healthcare. Rep. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) described Henry as "a huge positive presence in our community" and its "matriarch."

Henry was named the Los Angeles Times Woman of the Year in 1967, and in 2002, the Mary B. Henry Child Development Center was opened at the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science.

For more on the woman who fought for the health of impoverished Angelenos, read Mary B. Henry's obituary by The Times.

--Michael Farr

Photo: Mary B. Henry. Credit: Los Angeles Times

One year ago: Dr. Antonio De la Cruz

Conservative radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh credited Dr. Antonio De la Cruz with saving his career.

De la Cruz, a renowned neurotologist at the House Ear Clinic who died one year ago, performed cochlear implant surgery on Limbaugh in 2001, restoring the talk-show host's hearing, which had rapidly worsened due to an autoimmune inner-ear disease.

"I wouldn't have been able to continue my career," Limbaugh said. "For a month before I had the implant surgery, I did my show totally deaf."

As director of education at the House Ear Institute, De la Cruz led professional training programs for hundreds of visiting physicians in otology/neurotology surgical procedures and practices.

Fluent not only in English and Spanish but also in French, Italian, Portuguese and other languages, he frequently lectured and taught around the world.

De la Cruz served as president of the American Academy of Surgery in 1997 and 1998 and received the academy's presidential citation in 2004 and its Distinguished Service Award in 2007.

For more, read Dr. Antonio De la Cruz's obituary by The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Antonio De la Cruz. Credit: House Ear Institute

One year ago: Howard Engle

Howard Engle, who died one year ago, was a pediatrician and a lifelong smoker who headed a class-action lawsuit against tobacco firms that in 2000 resulted in the largest punitive damage award in U.S. history.

The award, $145 billion, was later deemed excessive by the Florida Supreme Court and the previous verdict overturned. The court insisted that each of the thousands of smokers covered by the Engle case must prove their cases individually.

Engle's battle with tobacco began in his medical school years when he began smoking to mask the smell of the cadavers in the anatomy lab. Although he said he tried quitting "well over 100 times," he was never successful and ended up dying from smoking-related ailments.

For more, read Howard Engle's obituary from The Times.

-- Michael Farr

Photo: Howard Engle at his Miami Beach home Feb. 17, 2006. Credit: Marice Cohn Band / Miami Herald