WHEREAS, The scientific world suffered a great loss on April 5, 2011with the passing of Dr. Baruch Blumberg, who received the 1976 Nobel Prize in physiology for discovering the hepatitis B virus, which causes severe liver disease and cancer; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Blumberg stumbled on the hepatitis B virus by accident and it is now the most widely used vaccines in the world, saving millions of lives; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Blumberg's scientific work in virology and epidemiology began his work in the 1960s at Philadelphia's Fox Chase Cancer Center where he investigated viruses with the study of yellow jaundice; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Blumberg's continuing research of blood-borne jaundice guided him on scientific field trips around the world which lead him to discover an unknown antigen in the blood of an Australian aborigine that yielded the so-called Australian antigen, a protein found on the surface of the hepatitis B virus; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Blumberg and his colleague Dr. Irving Millman of Fox Chase Cancer Center developed the first vaccine by isolating the hepatitis B surface antigen from patients with the disease; and
WHEREAS, Drs. Blumberg and Millman initially had a difficult time garnering the support of pharmaceutical companies to purchase the vaccine, but eventually signed an agreement with Merck and Company whose vaccine laboratories are located in the Philadelphia suburbs to produce the vaccine; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Blumberg was born in New York City in 1925 and received his bachelor's degree in Physics at Union College in Schenectady, New York and his M.D. from Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1951; and
WHEREAS, Dr. Blumberg conducted most of his research at the Fox Chase Cancer center and was on the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine as a professor of medicine, medical genetics and medical anthropology; now, therefore, be it
RESOLVED, THAT THE COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, Recognizes the accomplishments of Dr. Baruch Blumberg for saving millions of lives from liver disease and cancer.
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