Friedrich Wegener

Friedrich Wegener

Friedrich Wegener (April 7, 1907, Varel – July 9, 1990, Lübeck) was a German pathologist who is notable for his description of a rare disease. Although this disease was known before Wegener's description, from the 1950s to the 2000s it was called by the name Wegener's granulomatosis.[1]

Wegener joined the Nazi Party in 1932.[1] As a relatively high-ranking military physician, he spent some of World War II in a medical office three blocks from the Łódź Ghetto, a Jewish ghetto in Łódź, Poland.[1] There is speculation that he participated in experiments on concentration camp inmates.[1]

The American College of Chest Physicians (ACCP) awarded Wegener a “master clinician” prize in 1989.[1] After his Nazi past was discovered in 2000, the ACCP rescinded the prize and, separately, a campaign was begun to rename Wegener's granulomatosis to ANCA-associated granulomatous vasculitis.[1] More recently, several journals proposed the name 'granulomatosis with polyangiitis' in a 2011 editorial.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 1.5 Feder, Barnaby J. (2008-01-22). "A Nazi Past Casts a Pall on Name of a Disease". The New York Times.
  2. ↑ Granulomatosis with polyangiitis (Wegener's): An alternative name for Wegener's granulomatosis