Comstock, George Willis

▪ 2008

      American epidemiologist

born Jan. 7, 1915, Niagara Falls, N.Y.

died July 15, 2007, Smithsburg, Md.

conducted research in the 1940s and '50s for the U.S. Public Health Service to demonstrate the efficacy of vaccines that were used to treat tuberculosis (TB). After studying (1947–50) the infection rates among Georgia and Alabama schoolchildren who were given the Bacille Calmette-Guerin (BCG) vaccine to prevent TB, Comstock determined that BCG was ineffective. As a result, public health officials dropped plans for a mass-inoculation program using BCG. Following a study in Alaska, Comstock discovered in 1957 that the drug isoniazid (INH) was beneficial in preventing tuberculosis; his findings led to the adoption of INH as a therapy in limiting the severity of TB. After leaving the U.S. Public Health Service, Comstock joined (1962) Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Md., where he founded the Johns Hopkins Training Center for Public Health Research and Prevention (renamed for Comstock in 2005) in Hagerstown, Md. Comstock earned an M.D. (1941) from Harvard Medical School and a Ph.D. (1956) in public health from Johns Hopkins. He also served as the editor (1979–88) of the American Journal of Epidemiology.

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