Albert Lasker
Clinical Medical Research Award
Louis Katz
V. Everett Kinsey
Arnall Patz
Jonas Salk
Louis Katz
For his contribution to cardiovascular research and his advancement of the thesis that experimental atherosclerosis is basically a metabolic disease that is preventable and reversible.
V. Everett Kinsey
For his outstanding work as coordinator of the National Cooperative Study of Retrolental Fibroplasia.
With the help of 75 ophthalmologists and pediatricians in 18 hospitals, this study confirmed conclusively earlier observations that the incidence of blindness among premature babies increased with the duration of exposure to oxygen.
Previous research had eliminated other possible etiologic agents, such as virus infection, lack of hormones in the infant, exposure of the premature infant's eyes to light, lack of vitamin A in the mother, the administration of various vitamins and iron, blood transfusions and cow's milk. Dr. Kinsey, a biochemist, had participated in many of the studies on these possible agents.
Within a period of six months, data were accumulated through the cooperative study that would have taken a single hospital several years. Among babies weighing less than 1500 grams at birth, 25 percent of the infants receiving routine oxygen developed cicatricial retrolental fibroplasia, while only 6 percent of the infants on curtailed oxygen had the condition. The study showed that limiting the oxygen was without effect on survival.
In the United States alone, putting into effect the results of this coordinated research should prevent blindness in several hundred premature infants each year.
Arnall Patz
For his original, well-controlled studies in the cause and prevention of retrolental fibroplasia.
Based on a review of previously occurring cases, Dr. Patz observed alternate small premature babies kept at the routine high oxygen levels and at levels below 40 percent oxygen. Seven of 28 babies kept at the high levels were affected. There were none among 31 maintained at levels under 40 percent.
This critical observation prompted experiments with animals, which were finally successful. Newborn animals kept at high oxygen levels developed a condition like that in babies, while littermates not so exposed did not.
These studies were part of the evidence on which a coordinated investigation involving 18 hospitals and 75 ophthalmologists and pediatricians was based, and which has now produced conclusive and definitive proof of the relation between high oxygen concentration and this blinding condition in premature babies.
In this instance, the persistence of an individual ophthalmologist against considerable obstacles is notable. He was openly discouraged by an outstanding consultant in the pathology of the eye who believed he was on a mistaken lead. Using at first his own resources, he sought clinical and laboratory facilities to try out his theory. As a physician in private practice, he found time to explore the subject. He has set a standard for other practitioners by his undiscourageable search.
Jonas Salk
For developing a safe and effective vaccine against poliomyelitis.
The development of a safe and effective protection against the ravages of poliomyelitis has been for many years the goal of countless investigators and the prayer of untold millions of anxious parents. The ultimate attainment of this goal has been made possible only by the imagination and the labors of innumerable scientists, each of whom has made his small bit to the understanding of this disease. So has man's insight into poliomyelitis grown until it should befall to one man to bring together this accumulated knowledge and apply it with courage and determination to the ultimate development of a vaccine that could be used with safety. The trial of this vaccine and the measure of its effectiveness have again involved the labors of fellow scientists and have been made possible only through the trusting cooperation of the children and parents of America, each of whom in his small way has contributed to the realization of this long-sought objective.
From this record of human endeavor, there emerges one person, however, who more than any other, symbolized the thought and the labor that have gone into the development of a vaccine against poliomyelitis. To Jonas Salk was it given to weld together the contributions of his fellow scientists, to add to this foundation the fruits of his own research so as to emerge with man's first really effective weapon against this most dreaded of all diseases. The road has been hard, the obstacles great, but his vision, perseverance and courage have been greater.