Two leading scholars, Dr. Milton Friedman of Chicago and Dr. Baruch S. Blumberg of Philadelphia, both Jewish, were announced today in Stockholm as 1976 Nobel Prize winners. A third winner was Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek.
Friedman, 64, an internationally-famous economist who teaches at the University of Chicago, was awarded the Nobel Prize for economics. The Royal Academy of Sciences of Sweden cited his achievements in the fields of consumption analysis, monetary history and for demonstrating the complexity of stabilization policies. Described as the foremost conservative economist in the U.S., he was an economic advisor to Richard Nizon in the 1968 Presidential campaign.
Friedman, whose parents had emigrated from Austria-Hungary, was honored recently by the educators’ division of the Jewish United Fund of Chicago for outstanding service in the teaching of economics and was the guest speaker at two annual meetings of the financial and investment division of the JUF.
Blumberg, 51, a member of the staff of the Institute of Cancer Research in Philadelphia, and Gajdusek, 53, who is associated with the Laboratory of Central Nervous Systems Studies at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, Md., received the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology. Blumberg is also a professor of medicine and human genetics at the University of Pennsylvania and professor of anthropology at Temple University.
The Karolinska Institute said Blumberg had discovered a way of indicating the presence of hepatitis “B” virus in blood. His discovery means the carriers of this infection can now be identified and has made it possible to produce a solution of blood antibody and vaccine which protects against this disease.
Gajdusek studies a unique form of brain disease which occurs without fever or inflammatory reaction in the brain. The Karolinska Institute said both scientists’ work was of practical importance and demonstrated that infectuous agents may remain in an active form without any obvious presence of disease. Each prize is worth $140,000.
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.
