{{short description|American scientist}} {{Use mdy dates|date=January 2023}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Winston Price | birth_date = {{birth year|1923}} | birth_place = New York City, U.S. | death_date = {{death date and age|1981|04|30|1923||}} | death_place = Baltimore, Maryland, U.S. | spouse = {{marriage|Grace Hartigan|1960|}} | fields = *Epidemiology *Virology *Immunology *Vaccinology | workplaces = *Johns Hopkins University *Rockefeller Institute of Medical Research | alma_mater = *University of Pennsylvania *Princeton University | known_for = *Isolating first rhinovirus (1953) *Studies on ''rickettsia'' | awards = *Theobald Smith Award (1954) *Howard Taylor Ricketts award (1963) }}
'''Winston Harvey Price''' (1923 – April 30, 1981) was an American scientist and professor of epidemiology with a special interest in infectious diseases, who made media headlines in 1957, when he reported details of a vaccine for the common cold after isolating the first rhinovirus. He was acknowledged by the director of the Public Health Research Institute at the time. However, other specialists in the field of vaccine research have disputed his methods and data.
Earlier in his career, he had detailed how ticks of the genus ''Dermacentor'' were the main vectors of ''Rickettsia rickettsii'' that caused Rocky mountain spotted fever in humans.
== Early life and education == Price was born in New York City in 1923.<ref name=":Waggoner">{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/02/obituaries/winston-harvey-price-dies-at-58-authority-on-infectious-diseases.html|title=Winston Harvey Price Dies at 58; Authority on Infectious Diseases|last=Waggoner|first=Walter H.|date=May 2, 1981|work=The New York Times|access-date=February 3, 2020|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|url-access=subscription}}</ref> He had one older brother, Ira, and his father was a wealthy physician.<ref name=":Waggoner" /><ref name="Curtis2015">{{cite book|last=Curtis|first=Cathy |title=Restless Ambition: Grace Hartigan, Painter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ctolBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA182|year=2015|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-939450-0|pages=182–183}}</ref> According to the 1925 New York State Census, his mother was Canadian-born Florence, who had emigrated to the United States. His family lived at 1565 Grand Concourse in the Bronx.<ref name=":Waggoner"/>
In 1942 he earned a B.A. in biology and chemistry from the University of Pennsylvania and in 1949, M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physiology and biochemistry from Princeton.<ref name=":Waggoner"/> He was inspired by Sinclair Lewis's novel ''Arrowsmith''.<ref name="Kinch2018"/>
== Career == During the Second World War, Price served in the armed forces as a research worker in a laboratory, helping treat injuries from poisonous gases and burns.<ref name=":Waggoner" /> After the war he was on staff at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.<ref name=":Waggoner" /> In 1951, he became an assistant professor of biochemistry and a research associate in epidemiology at Johns Hopkins University.<ref name=":Waggoner" /> The following year, he published his paper on bacterial viruses.<ref name="Kinch2018" /><ref name=Cowles1953>{{Cite journal|last=Cowles|first=Philip B.|date=April 1953|title=Lysogenesis in Bacillus Megatherium|journal=The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine|volume=25|issue=5|pages=313–319|issn=0044-0086|pmc=2599508|pmid=13057261}}</ref>
===Rocky Mountain spotted fever=== thumb|''Dermacentor variabilis'', vector of Rocky Mountain spotted fever In 1954, he detailed how ticks of the genus ''Dermacentor'', not ''haemaphysalis'', were the main vectors of ''Rickettsia rickettsii'' that caused Rocky mountain spotted fever in humans.<ref name=Stannard>{{Cite book|last1=Stannard|first1=Lewis J.|url=https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/bitstream/handle/2142/17243/ectoparasitesofc38stan.pdf?sequence=1|title=Ectoparasites of the cottontail rabbit: In Lee County, North Illinois|last2=Piesch|first2=Lysle R.|publisher=Authority of the State of Illinois|date=Jun 1958|location=Urbana, Illinois|pages=8}}</ref>
He co-authored a paper that reported that ''Rickettsia rickettsii'' could be made avirulent by treatment with PABA.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Harden|first=Victoria Angela|url=https://archive.org/details/rockymountainspo00hard|title=Rocky Mountain spotted fever : history of a twentieth-century disease|date=1990|publisher=Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press|others=NIH Library|pages=254|isbn=9780801839054}}</ref>
===Common cold=== In 1953, when a cluster of nurses developed a mild respiratory illness, Price took nasal passage samples and isolated the first rhinovirus, which he called the JH virus, named after Johns Hopkins.<ref name= Davison /><ref name=Offit2007>{{Cite book|last=Offit|first=Paul A.|author-link=Paul Offit|url=https://www.academia.edu/28168473|title=Vaccinated; One man's quest to defeat the world's deadliest diseases|publisher=HarperCollins|year=2007|pages=66–68|isbn=978-0-06-122795-0|language=en}}{{Dead link|date=December 2025 |bot=InternetArchiveBot }}</ref> At the time, the JH virus was the cause of almost one third of cases of the common cold.<ref name=":Waggoner" /><ref name="Davison">{{Cite news|last=Davison|first=Nicola|url=https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/oct/06/why-cant-we-cure-the-common-cold|title=Why can't we cure the common cold?|date=October 6, 2017|work=The Guardian|access-date=February 20, 2020|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref><ref name="PHR1959">{{cite book|title=Public Health Reports|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XFZ6ZQDXb0QC&pg=PA9|volume=74|year=1959|publisher=The Service|page=9}}</ref> His findings were published in 1956.<ref name=Kennedy>{{Cite journal|last1=Kennedy|first1=Joshua L|last2=Turner|first2=Ronald B.|last3=Braciale|first3=Thomas|last4=Heymann|first4=Peter W.|last5=Borish|first5=Larry|date=June 2012|title=Pathogenesis of Rhinovirus Infection|journal=Current Opinion in Virology|volume=2|issue=3|pages=287–293|doi=10.1016/j.coviro.2012.03.008|issn=1879-6257|pmc=3378761|pmid=22542099}}</ref> According to paediatrician Paul Offit, in his book ''Vaccinated; One man's quest to defeat the world's deadliest diseases'',<ref name="Curtis2015p.350">{{cite book|last=Curtis|first=Cathy |title=Restless Ambition: Grace Hartigan, Painter|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ctolBgAAQBAJ&pg=PA350|year=2015|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-939450-0|pages=350}}</ref> Price subsequently cultured the virus in the kidney cells of monkeys, added formaldehyde to kill the virus, and then administered it by injection into a hundred local school boys. Over the following two years, he reported that his vaccine reduced the likelihood of catching the common cold by eight-fold. Price did however clarify that "it's absolutely misleading if anyone thinks we are going to have an all-inclusive cure for colds".<ref name=Offit2007/> His findings were published in 1957. It triggered widespread media attention and was acknowledged by virologist George Hirst, who was director of the Public Health Research Institute at the time when he said “the work by Dr. Price on the new JH virus is a promising lead in the attack on the common cold.”<ref name="Kinch2018"/><ref name="PHR1959"/> Price featured in ''Life'' magazine, ''The Times'', ''The New York Times'' and ''Time''.<ref name="Curtis2015"/> However, Price's own supervisor at Johns Hopkins doubted his results.<ref name="Kinch2018"/> In Offit's book, Maurice Hilleman in the early 1960s, who later became an expert in vaccine research, is said to have disputed Price's data as untrue and saying that "his study was a complete fraud".<ref name="Kinch2018"/><ref name=Offit2007/> In Cathy Curtis's biography of Price's second wife, Grace Hartigan, she says that Price was "deceptive", "known for his tall tales" and likely "fabricated" his results.<ref name=Quilter2016>{{Cite journal|url=https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v38/n08/jenni-quilter/the-real-thing|title=The Real Thing|last=Quilter|first=Jenni|date=April 20, 2016|journal=London Review of Books|volume=38|issue=8|language=en|access-date=February 21, 2020}}</ref> Journalist and author Susannah Cahalan, portrayed Price as "obsessed with finding a cure for the common cold".<ref name="Cahalan2020"/> Price also believed that most people naturally harbored microbes and that environmental factors such as cold weather triggered them to cause illness.<ref name="Kinch2018"/>
===Other work=== At one time, the Department of Defense asked Price to study typhus in the armed forces.<ref name=Quilter2016/>
While at Johns Hopkins, Price researched the development of resistance against the Japanese encephalitis (JE) virus in mice and monkeys.<ref name="Diseases1975">{{cite book|author=U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases|title=Annual Progress Report|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2yJG0aQ2vD8C&pg=PA348|year=1975|publisher=The Institute|page=348}}</ref>
With his group at the Johns Hopkins, Price, injected three virus strains, two of which originated from encephalitis viruses, into monkeys, and reported that this conferred protection against "a whole family of diseases".<ref name=NYT11Oct1964>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1964/10/11/archives/encephalitis-vaccine-sought.html|title=Encephalitis; Vaccine Sought|date=October 11, 1964|work=The New York Times|access-date=February 18, 2020|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|url-access=subscription}}</ref> ''The New York Times'' in 1964, reported that Price's work may one day lead to a safe vaccine for encephalitis.<ref name=NYT11Oct1964/>
=== Awards === In 1954, for his work on Rocky Mountain spotted fever and other rickettsial diseases,<ref name="Curtis2015"/> he received the Theobald Smith Award.<ref name=":Waggoner" /> In 1963, he received the Howard Taylor Ricketts Award.<ref name=":Waggoner" />
== Personal life == His first marriage ended in divorce.<ref name="Kinch2018">{{cite book|last=Kinch|first=Michael |title=Between Hope and Fear: A History of Vaccines and Human Immunity|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yu8_DwAAQBAJ&pg=PT209|year=2018|publisher=Pegasus Books|isbn=978-1-68177-820-4|pages=209–212}}</ref> As an art collector he met artist Grace Hartigan and they married in 1960; his second marriage and her fourth.<ref name=McNay>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2008/nov/24/1|title=Obituary: Grace Hartigan|last=McNay|first=Michael|date=November 24, 2008|work=The Guardian|access-date=February 4, 2020|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref> In the mid-1960s, he began to self-administer experimental encephalitis vaccines, which led to "impaired judgment, inappropriate responses, memory loss, anxiety and personality changes".<ref name=Quilter2016/>
== Death == On April 30, 1981, at the age of 58, Price died of meningitis at the Mercy Hospital, Baltimore, Maryland, following a decade-long mental and physical decline, caused by injecting himself with an experimental vaccine against encephalitis.<ref name=":Waggoner" /><ref name=Grimes>{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/18/arts/design/18hartigan.html|title=Grace Hartigan, 86, Abstract Painter, Dies|last=Grimes|first=William|date=November 18, 2008|work=The New York Times|access-date=February 17, 2018|language=en-US|issn=0362-4331|url-access=subscription}}</ref><ref name="Cahalan2020">{{cite book|last=Cahalan|first=Susannah|author-link=Susannah Cahalan|title=The Great Pretender: The Undercover Mission that Changed our Understanding of Madness|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=81mqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT231|year=2020|publisher=Canongate Books|isbn=978-1-83885-141-5|page=231}}</ref>
==Selected publications== * {{cite journal|last1=Price|first1=Winston H.|title=Bacterial Viruses|journal=Annual Review of Microbiology|volume=6|issue=1|year=1952|pages=333–348|issn=0066-4227|doi=10.1146/annurev.mi.06.100152.002001|pmid=13008401}} * {{cite journal|last1=Price|first1=Winston H.|title=The epidemiology of Rocky Mountain spotted fever: I The Characterization of Strain Virulence of ''Rickettsia Rickettsii''"|journal=American Journal of Epidemiology|volume=58|issue=2|year=1953|pages=248–268|issn=1476-6256|doi=10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a119604|pmid=13080263}} *{{cite journal|last1=Gilford|first1=J. H.|last2=Price|first2=Winston H.|title=virulent-avirulent conversions of ''Rickettsia Rickettsii'' in vitro|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=41|issue=11|year=1955|pages=870–873|issn=0027-8424|doi=10.1073/pnas.41.11.870|pmid=16589763|pmc=534296|bibcode=1955PNAS...41..870G|url= https://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/41/11/870.full.pdf |series=Biochemistry|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|last1=Price|first1=Winston H.|title=The isolation of a new virus associated with respiratory clinical disease in humans|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=42|issue=12|year=1956|pages=892–896|issn=0027-8424|doi=10.1073/pnas.42.12.892|pmid=16589969|pmc=528365|bibcode=1956PNAS...42..892P|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|last1=Price|first1=Winston H.|title=Vaccine for the prevention in humans of coldlike symptoms associated with the JH virus|journal=Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences|volume=43|issue=9|year=1957|pages=790–795|issn=0027-8424|doi=10.1073/pnas.43.9.790|pmid=16590087|pmc=534328|bibcode=1957PNAS...43..790P|doi-access=free}} *{{cite journal|last1=Price|first1=Winston H.|last2=Parks|first2=James|last3=O'Leary|first3=Walter|last4=Ganaway|first4=James|last5=Lee|first5=Ralph|title=A Sequential Immunization Procedure against Certain Group B Arboviruses|journal=The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene|volume=12|issue=4|year=1963|pages=624–638|issn=0002-9637|doi=10.4269/ajtmh.1963.12.624}}
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * {{cite journal|url=https://www.osti.gov/opennet/servlets/purl/16007560.pdf|title=Prevention and Improved Treatment of Viral and Rickettsial Infections in Man|journal=Consolidated R & D Annual Project Report|publisher=Army Medical Service|date=December 31, 1957|pages=63}} *[https://archive.org/details/DTIC_ADA293313/page/n119/mode/2up/search/price The Armed Forces Epidemiological Board. The Histories of the Commissions]. Defense Technical Information Center (1992)
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Price, Winston}} Category:1923 births Category:1981 deaths Category:American vaccinologists Category:American epidemiologists Category:American virologists Category:Scientists from New York City Category:Princeton University alumni Category:University of Pennsylvania alumni Category:Johns Hopkins University faculty Category:American military personnel of World War II