[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 117 (Tuesday, September 8, 1998)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9994-S9995]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IN MEMORY OF MARYLANDERS MARK AND CAULEY CHAPMAN, DR. JONATHAN MANN,
AND DR. MARY LOU CLEMENTS-MANN
Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, and to all who are with us in the
proceedings today, I rise with melancholy to pay tribute to four
Marylanders who were killed in the tragic crash of Swissair Flight 111
late Wednesday night, September 2, 1998. Dr. Jonathan Mann and Dr. Mary
Lou Clements-Mann lived in Columbia. Mark Chapman and Cauley lived in
Olney.
Mark Chapman was an engineer, and his wife was a flight attendant for
American Airlines. They were on their way to Greece to visit his
parents. Friends in their 10-house neighborhood in Olney tell stories
about their kindness and thoughtfulness, how the Chapmans kept everyone
entertained and had the whole neighborhood over for backyard barbeques.
Mark and Cauley loved animals, and every morning Mrs. Chapman would
be out with her beagle Ruby trotting along on her daily walk. In a
world that too often lacks a sense of community, the Chapmans went out
of their way to be a part of their community and to make others feel
welcome in it. According to one neighbor, ``Knowing Cauley, she was
probably helping out the other stewardesses on the plane.''
Dr. Jonathan Mann created the World Health Organization's AIDS
program, and Dr. Mary Louise Clements-Mann was the director of the
vaccine research at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health. They
were partners in science and partners in life, having met at a
scientific conference three years ago and married last year.
Their loss is felt deeply by the medical research community, and it
is felt deeply by the community of caring they helped to create. More
than being dedicated to research, they were dedicated to the people
they were trying to help. They believed, as I do, that our policies
should reflect our values.
Dr. Mann was among the first to declare that AIDS was a disease that
rightfully concerned all of us, that it did not recognize class,
gender, or global boundaries. In 1984, he became director of an AIDS
project in the central African nation of Zaire (now the Congo). It was
there that he traced the transmission patterns and risk factors for
AIDS. Unusual for a medical researcher, he also traced the political
and social implications of this deadly disease. He spoke out about the
connection between AIDS and human rights, and he worked with
governments to fight cruelty and discrimination against people with
AIDS. In February 1987, he was appointed head of the WHO AIDS office,
and he and his staff visited 77 nations in nine months to assess the
epidemic.
[[Page S9995]]
Early this year, Dr. Mann took on a new responsibility as dean of the
School of Public Health at Allegheny University of the Health Sciences.
He has been described as `a dapper man who wore starched white shirts
and red bow ties', who boarded the train every day to Philadelphia.
Since January, he had also been a visiting professor at the Hopkins
School of Public Health.
Dr. Clements-Mann had an equally stellar list of accomplishments and
a reputation as a gentle woman who could also be a tough taskmaster
when it came to life-saving medical research. Born in Longview, Texas,
she graduated from Texas Tech with a degree in chemistry at a time when
few women were encouraged to consider science careers. She earned
another degree in chemistry from the University of Texas Southwestern
Medical School in Dallas, and advanced degrees from the University of
London and from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
In 1986, she moved to Johns Hopkins to start and direct its vaccine
center. She became one of the world's experts in developing vaccines
against life-threatening diseases, from Hepatitis C to influenza. Her
reputation was built on selecting vaccines for medical trials that had
the best chance of success, and one of the vaccines she helped develop
was just approved by the FDA last week. Even as an internationally
famous researcher, colleagues said she preferred to be called Mary Lou
by co-workers and volunteers alike.
Dr. Clements-Mann loved to garden and they both loved to travel and
go camping. Neighbors in their Hickory Ridge neighborhood in Columbia
often saw the two of them taking walks and holding hands. It is a
tragedy that the world has been deprived of their knowledge, their
compassion, and their ability to affect public policy in the face of
worldwide epidemics.
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