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Epidemiologist who battled tuberculosis dead at 92

Dr. George Wills Comstock died Sunday, July 15, of prostate cancer, according to the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. For four years, beginning in 1947, Comstock, an epidemiologist, conducted the first trials of the BCG vaccine for tuberculosis in Georgia and Alabama. The studies found the vaccine largely ineffective, prompting the U.S. government to discontinue vaccinating children with it. In a 1957 trial in 29 villages near Bethel, Alaska, Comstock discovered the drug isoniazid (INH) was effective in preventing TB. Five years later, he founded the Johns Hopkins Training Center for Public Health Research and Prevention in Hagerstown. During the following 30 years, he oversaw community-based research studies on diseases including cancer, heart disease, and an eye disease known as histoplasmosis. Comstock spent 20 working for the U.S. Public Health Service and over 40 years teaching at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. Comstock was 92.

Sources: Associated Press, NYTimes.com

Posted by Corey Anderson at July 27, 2007 9:47 AM

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