Irving Selikoff

Irving J. Selikoff ( born January 15, 1915 in Brooklyn, † 20 May 1992, Ridgewood ( New Jersey)) was an American physician who for the development of TB drug regimens and the study and propagation of the link between cancer (, and other diseases, asbestosis ), and asbestos known.

Selikoff studied at Columbia University ( bachelor's degree ) and at the Royal College of Medicine in Scotland ( M. D. degree in 1941 ). His specialist training, he began at a hospital in Newark, New Jersey and was then over fifty years at Mount Sinai Hospital in New York City, where he began as an assistant in anatomy and pathology, and finally from 1966 to 1985, the Division conducted Occupational and Environmental Medicine, which emerged from the Environmental Science Laboratory, established by him.

In Mount Sinai, Brookhaven developed Selikoff a successful tuberculosis therapy with isoniazid and led the clinical trials in 1952 by Edward H. Robitzek.

Mid-1950s, he treated workers for asbestos workers union, said he noticed an unusual accumulation of mesotheliomas in these workers. The relationship had been already published by others, but Selikoff led systematic interdisciplinary experimental and epidemiological studies (for example, by shipyard workers in Long Beach ) and launched a campaign that also found wide public attention in the United States. A breakthrough in its campaign against asbestos, which initially met with great resistance from companies and lobby organizations and made him the target of personal attacks also was a conference of the New York Academy of Sciences in 1965 on this topic. Selikoffs efforts were essential to the asbestos regulations that were adopted in the U.S. and other countries.

Selikoff published over 370 scientific papers and edited 13 monographs and supervised approximately 70 clinical tests.

In 1955 he received the Albert Lasker Award for Clinical Medical Research for his tuberculosis therapy. For his research, he was asbestos honorary member of the Asbestos Workers Union. He was president of the American Thoracic Society and the New York Academy of Sciences.

Selikoff was a founding editor of the American Journal of Industrial Medicine and Environmental Research.