From time to time in these columns, I will speak on “Famous People” who lived in Weedsport and who went on to make a name for themselves. I have mentioned in a previous column William Fargo of the famous Wells-Fargo partnership and others. In this month's article, I will write about the Weedsport man who went on to become probably our most famous former resident.
In June 1940, Weedsport Central School Valedictorian Phyllis Parkman was bed ridden with German, or “Old-Fashioned,” measles at the time of graduation.
Despite having a grade average of 96.4 percent, she could not take her scheduled Regents exams and consequently did not receive her Regents diploma until the following January when the tests were next scheduled.
“Old Fashioned” measles, or rubella, was a serious illness, not in the fact that they caused young ladies to miss graduation ceremonies, or even that it was much of an illness to the person who had it. The dreadful effects to the unborn whose mother's had been exposed to someone with the disease was the horror of Rubella. There was a very high risk of newborn death, blindness, deafness or mental retardation associated with children born to mother's so exposed. In this county alone many thousands of such catastrophic births were recorded each year.
In 1950, 10 years after Phyllis had missed graduation, her brother Paul graduated from Weedsport Central School as salutatorian and while he didn't have the measles, his name is now synonymous with any discussion of that dreaded disease around the world. Paul was an excellent student, was senior class president, editor of the yearbook and a member of the school band.
Following graduation he began undergraduate studies at St. Lawrence University and completed his four-year degree in three years.
He then entered medical school at the State University of New York College of Medicine at Syracuse.
A scant four years after his graduation from medical school and just 11 years after he walked the halls of WCS, Dr. Paul Parkman achieved something so remarkable that it would literally change the world. He isolated the rubella virus!
After successfully isolating the virus in 1961 he joined forces with Dr. Harry Meyer to develop the vaccine that has led to the virtual elimination of this dreadful scourge in most progressive countries.
After the work with the rubella vaccine, he went on to work for the Food & Drug Administration and was eventually named director of the Center For Biologic Evaluation and Research and was the AIDS Coordinator for the agency. He is the author of more than 100 scientific papers.
Parkman's list of accomplishments and awards is astounding and cannot be shown in this brief column, but he received presidential citations from both Lyndon Johnson and George Bush. He received the prestigious Kennedy International Award for Distinguished Scientific Research and the E. Mead Johnson Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics. He also received the Parents Magazine Medal for Distinguished Service to Children and honorary doctorate degrees from both St. Lawrence University and SUNY.
Parkman is now mostly retired and lives in Maryland with his high school sweetheart, Elmerina Leonardi, whom he married in 1955.
(As a short side note, my classmate, Bob Leonardi, who also writes for The Citizen and who owns the Green Shutters Restaurant, was an usher for his sister's wedding to Parkman all those years ago!)
Parkman was waiting to be interviewed on a Chicago TV station and the other guest was Frank Sinatra. The singer asked the doctor, “What do you do?” And Parkman answered “I developed the vaccine against German Measles.”
Sinatra's reply was “What took you so long?”
On the occasion of his retirement, he was interviewed and remarked that when he was 17, his father asked him what he wanted to be.
“He suggested music teacher, barber and several others and I said ‘No.' Finally he got around to asking me about becoming a doctor and I said ‘Yes.' He had hoped all along that would be my choice. My father worked hard for many years at three jobs to put me through medical school.”
Parkman and Elmerina are still frequent visitors to the area, with many family members still living here. In 2000, he was honored by his high school class on the occasion of his 50th anniversary of graduation.
Although rubella is now nearly wiped out in most progressive countries, it remains a scourge in some areas of the world where either ignorance or poverty have forestalled the use of the vaccine.
A campaign is now underway in Nepal, where the government program last year cut by 90 percent the expected deaths of some 5,000 babies. Deafness, blindness and brain damage would have affected many thousands more.
Dr. Mark Grabowski of the International Red Cross notes that “vaccinating children against measles is the greatest return on child health that we have. It's the low hanging fruit.”
Nonetheless, more than 450,000 babies still die needlessly per year in India and many African countries. Since the Latin American countries jumped on the bandwagon in 1994, measles has been virtually eliminated in the Western Hemisphere - all thanks to Weedsport native Dr. Paul Parkman!
Denny Randall is vice president of the Old Brutus Historical Society in Weedsport
Despite having a grade average of 96.4 percent, she could not take her scheduled Regents exams and consequently did not receive her Regents diploma until the following January when the tests were next scheduled.
“Old Fashioned” measles, or rubella, was a serious illness, not in the fact that they caused young ladies to miss graduation ceremonies, or even that it was much of an illness to the person who had it. The dreadful effects to the unborn whose mother's had been exposed to someone with the disease was the horror of Rubella. There was a very high risk of newborn death, blindness, deafness or mental retardation associated with children born to mother's so exposed. In this county alone many thousands of such catastrophic births were recorded each year.
In 1950, 10 years after Phyllis had missed graduation, her brother Paul graduated from Weedsport Central School as salutatorian and while he didn't have the measles, his name is now synonymous with any discussion of that dreaded disease around the world. Paul was an excellent student, was senior class president, editor of the yearbook and a member of the school band.
Following graduation he began undergraduate studies at St. Lawrence University and completed his four-year degree in three years.
He then entered medical school at the State University of New York College of Medicine at Syracuse.
A scant four years after his graduation from medical school and just 11 years after he walked the halls of WCS, Dr. Paul Parkman achieved something so remarkable that it would literally change the world. He isolated the rubella virus!
After successfully isolating the virus in 1961 he joined forces with Dr. Harry Meyer to develop the vaccine that has led to the virtual elimination of this dreadful scourge in most progressive countries.
After the work with the rubella vaccine, he went on to work for the Food & Drug Administration and was eventually named director of the Center For Biologic Evaluation and Research and was the AIDS Coordinator for the agency. He is the author of more than 100 scientific papers.
Parkman's list of accomplishments and awards is astounding and cannot be shown in this brief column, but he received presidential citations from both Lyndon Johnson and George Bush. He received the prestigious Kennedy International Award for Distinguished Scientific Research and the E. Mead Johnson Award from the American Academy of Pediatrics. He also received the Parents Magazine Medal for Distinguished Service to Children and honorary doctorate degrees from both St. Lawrence University and SUNY.
Parkman is now mostly retired and lives in Maryland with his high school sweetheart, Elmerina Leonardi, whom he married in 1955.
(As a short side note, my classmate, Bob Leonardi, who also writes for The Citizen and who owns the Green Shutters Restaurant, was an usher for his sister's wedding to Parkman all those years ago!)
Parkman was waiting to be interviewed on a Chicago TV station and the other guest was Frank Sinatra. The singer asked the doctor, “What do you do?” And Parkman answered “I developed the vaccine against German Measles.”
Sinatra's reply was “What took you so long?”
On the occasion of his retirement, he was interviewed and remarked that when he was 17, his father asked him what he wanted to be.
“He suggested music teacher, barber and several others and I said ‘No.' Finally he got around to asking me about becoming a doctor and I said ‘Yes.' He had hoped all along that would be my choice. My father worked hard for many years at three jobs to put me through medical school.”
Parkman and Elmerina are still frequent visitors to the area, with many family members still living here. In 2000, he was honored by his high school class on the occasion of his 50th anniversary of graduation.
Although rubella is now nearly wiped out in most progressive countries, it remains a scourge in some areas of the world where either ignorance or poverty have forestalled the use of the vaccine.
A campaign is now underway in Nepal, where the government program last year cut by 90 percent the expected deaths of some 5,000 babies. Deafness, blindness and brain damage would have affected many thousands more.
Dr. Mark Grabowski of the International Red Cross notes that “vaccinating children against measles is the greatest return on child health that we have. It's the low hanging fruit.”
Nonetheless, more than 450,000 babies still die needlessly per year in India and many African countries. Since the Latin American countries jumped on the bandwagon in 1994, measles has been virtually eliminated in the Western Hemisphere - all thanks to Weedsport native Dr. Paul Parkman!
Denny Randall is vice president of the Old Brutus Historical Society in Weedsport
