Nearly 100 leading American medical scientists, including six Nobel Laureates, joined colleagues from three European countries yesterday in appealing for the release of their colleague, Dr. Mikhail Stern, who is serving an eight-year sentence in a Soviet labor camp. The appeal from the American scientists, which appeared in the press, endorsed a resolution passed by the Endocrine Society which states that they “will find future cooperative efforts (with the USSR) obstructed by thoughts of Dr. Stern’s continued imprisonment.” The resolution called upon Soviet authorities “to release Dr. Stern from prison and to allow him to spend his remaining years with his family” in Israel.
Stern, who is suffering serious heart and spinal ailments, has been transferred to hard labor in the “intensified regime” camp to which he was sentenced. Since his trial, Stern’s case has attracted the attention of medical researchers and practitioners throughout the world. They responded to a call from Nobel Laureate Andrei Sakharov “to study the accusations against their colleague, which, in my opinion, are not substantial.” The American Nobel Laureates in medicine who signed the appeal include David Baltimore, Baruch Blumberg, Arthur Kornberg, Joshua. Lederberg. Howard Temin and George Wald. Similar appeals were issued in newspapers in Great Britain, France and Sweden.
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
