[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 44 (Thursday, April 14, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3646-S3647]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                    TRIBUTE TO DR. MAURICE HILLEMAN

  Mr. BAUCUS. Madam President, I rise today to memorialize the life and 
accomplishments of Dr. Maurice Hilleman, a renowned microbiologist and 
native son of Montana.
  Dr. Maurice R. Hilleman dedicated his life to developing vaccines for 
mumps, measles, chickenpox, pneumonia, meningitis and other diseases, 
saving tens of millions of lives. He died on Monday at a hospital in 
Philadelphia at the age of 85.
  Raised on a farm in Montana, Dr. Hilleman credited much of his 
success to his boyhood work with chickens, whose eggs form the 
foundation of so many vaccines. Much of modern preventive medicine is 
based on Dr. Hilleman's work, though he never received the public 
recognition of Salk, Sabin or Pasteur. He is credited with having 
developed more human and animal vaccines than any other scientist, 
helping to extend human life expectancy and improving the economies of 
many countries.
  According to two medical leaders, Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of 
the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and Dr. Paul 
A. Offit, chief of infectious diseases at Children's Hospital in 
Philadelphia, Dr. Hilleman probably saved more lives than any other 
scientist in the 20th century. ``The scientific quality and quantity of 
what he did was amazing,'' Dr. Fauci is quoted as saying. ``Just one of 
his accomplishments would be enough to have made for a great scientific 
career. One can say without hyperbole that Maurice changed the world 
with his extraordinary contributions in so many disciplines: virology, 
epidemiology, immunology, cancer research and vaccinology.''
  Dr. Hilleman developed 8 of the 14 vaccines routinely recommended: 
measles, mumps, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, chickenpox, meningitis, 
pneumonia and Haemophilus influenzae bacteria. He also developed the 
first generation of a vaccine against rubella, also known as German 
measles. The vaccines have virtually vanquished many of the once common 
childhood diseases in developed countries.
  In addition, Dr. Hilleman overcame immunological obstacles to combine 
vaccines so that one shot could protect against several diseases, like 
the MMR vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella. He developed about 40 
experimental and licensed animal and human vaccines, mostly with his 
team from Merck of Whitehouse Station, NJ His role in their development 
included lab work as well as scientific and administrative leadership.
  And as a sign of his humility, Dr. Hilleman routinely credited others 
for their roles in advances, according to his colleagues.
  Vaccine development is complex, requiring an artistry to safely 
produce large amounts of weakened live or dead microorganisms. Dr. 
Offit once said, ``Maurice was that artist: no one had the green thumb 
of mass production that he had.'' The hepatitis B vaccine, licensed in 
1981, is credited as the first

[[Page S3647]]

to prevent a human cancer: a liver cancer, known as a hepatoma, that 
can develop as a complication of infection from the hepatitis B virus.
  One of Dr. Hilleman's goals was to develop the first licensed vaccine 
against any viral cancer. He achieved it in the early 1970s, developing 
a vaccine to prevent Marek's disease, a lymphoma cancer of chickens 
caused by a member of the herpes virus family. Preventing the disease 
helped revolutionize the economics of the poultry industry. Dr. 
Hilleman's vaccines have also prevented deafness, blindness and other 
permanent disabilities among millions of people, a point made in 1988 
when President Ronald Reagan presented him with the National Medal of 
Science, the Nation's highest scientific honor.
  Because scientific knowledge about viruses was so limited when he 
began his career, Dr. Hilleman said that trial and error, sound 
judgment and luck drove much of his research. Luck played a major role 
in the discovery of adenoviruses. Dr. Hilleman flew a team to Missouri 
to collect specimens from troops suffering from influenza. But by the 
time his team arrived, influenza had died out. Fearing that he would be 
fired for an expensive useless exercise, Dr. Hilleman seized on his 
observation of the occurrence of a fresh outbreak of a different 
disease. His team discovered three new types of adenoviruses among the 
troops.
  In the early 1950s, he made a discovery that helps prevent influenza. 
He detected a pattern of genetic changes that the influenza virus 
undergoes as it mutates. The phenomenon is known as drift--minor 
changes--and shift--- major changes. Vaccine manufacturers take account 
of drift in choosing the strains of influenza virus included in the 
vaccines that are freshly made each influenza season. Shifts can herald 
a large outbreak or pandemic of influenza, and Dr. Hilleman was the 
first to detect the shift that caused the 1957 Asian influenza 
pandemic. He read an article in the New York Times on April 17, 1957, 
about influenza among infants in Hong Kong--cases that had escaped 
detection from the worldwide influenza surveillance systems. At the 
time, he directed the central laboratory for worldwide military 
influenza surveillance and was sure that the cases represented the 
advent of an influenza pandemic. So he immediately sent for specimens 
from Hong Kong and helped isolate a new strain of influenza virus. He 
also demanded that breeders keep roosters that would otherwise have 
been slaughtered so they could fertilize enough eggs to prepare 40 
million doses of influenza to protect Americans against the 1957 
influenza strain.
  Standing tall at six-foot-one and wearing reading glasses that rested 
on the tip of his nose, Dr. Hilleman described himself as a renegade. 
He often participated in scientific meetings, where he could be 
irascible while amusing his colleagues with profane asides. At one of 
many meetings with this physician-reporter, a Thanksgiving Day dinner 
during a conference at the World Health Organization in Geneva in the 
1980s, Dr. Hilleman said he was driven by a goal to get rid of disease 
and by a belief that scientists had to serve society.
  Maurice Ralph Hilleman was born on Aug. 30, 1919, in Miles City, MT. 
His mother and twin sister died during his birth. In 1937, he went to 
work in the local J. C. Penney's store where he helped cowpokes, as he 
described his customers, pick out chenille bathrobes for their 
girlfriends, and he was well on the way to a career in retailing until 
his oldest brother suggested that he go to college. After graduating 
from Montana State University in 1941, he received his Ph.D. in 
microbiology from the University of Chicago and then joined E. R. 
Squibb & Sons. There, he developed a vaccine against Japanese B 
encephalitis to protect American troops in the World War II Pacific 
offensive. In 1948, he moved to the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and 
stayed until 1957, when Vannevar Bush, then chairman of Merck and a 
former director of the Federal Office of Scientific Research and 
Development in World War II, persuaded him to direct a virus research 
program for the drug company.
  After retiring as senior vice president for Merck research 
laboratories in 1984, Dr. Hilleman continued to work on vaccines, 
saying they were needed for at least 20 diseases, including AIDS. Dr. 
Hilleman is survived by his wife, Lorraine, a retired nurse; two 
daughters, Jeryl Lynn of Palo Alto, CA., and Kirsten J. of New York 
City; two brothers, Victor, of Fontana, CA., and Norman, of Santa 
Barbara, CA.; and five grandchildren. His daughter Jeryl Lynn is at 
least in part responsible for the mumps vaccine. In 1963, when her 
salivary glands started to swell with the disease, Dr. Hilleman swabbed 
her throat and went on to isolate the virus. He then weakened it and 
within 4 years had produced the now-standard mumps vaccine. The 
weakened strain bears her name.
  Mr. President, it is an honor for me to pay my respects to such a 
great and accomplished man as Dr. Maurice Hilleman. And it is an honor 
for me to call him a fellow Montanan.

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