War book: Damadian Nobel Prize 7/15/2004 SH BT CL
Was the Inventor of Magnetic Resonance Imaging not Awarded the Nobel
Prize Because of His Creationism Beliefs?
Jerry Bergman Ph.D.
Introduction
Can a personas beliefs about the role of an intelligent creator in
creating life prevent an otherwise deserving scientist from being
awarded a Nobel Prize? One of the most blatant cases occurred
recently with the awarding of the Nobel Prize in Medicine for the
discovery of magnetic resonance imaging. Instead of awarding the
prize to the actual inventor, Dr. Raymond Damadian, it was given to
Paul C. Lauterbur of the University of Illinois and Sir Peter
Mansfield of the University of Nottingham, England.
The invention of MRI was no small achievement. MRI technology is now
over a five-billion-dollar-per-year industry, and is the premiere
medical diagnostic imaging method available today. It is, in general,
able to image diseased tissue more accurately, more safely, and more
efficiently than any other medical imaging technique. Although x-ray
and computed tomography are still often used, a major reason is
because of their lower cost. So far, over a half-billion MRI scans
have been done since its invention.
The Inventor
Raymond Damadian was born in Manhattan on March 16, 1936. When
Damadian was ten years old, his grandmother died of breast cancer.
She had been in great pain, and seeing that made a lasting impression
on young Raymond. Her illness was especially hard on Raymond because
he was very close to his grandmother (Mattson and Simon, 1969,
p. 615). This event set Damadian on a course to find a way to help
treat cancer. He first got the idea for MRI while working with
nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), scanning a type of Dead Sea bacteria
called halophiles that had twenty times the potassium level compared
to most other bacteria (1994, p. 55). The research with the bacteria
worked so well that Damadian then recognized that detecting tissue
abnormalities in humans was possible. As chronicled in the book A
Machine Called Indomitable, Damadian spent most of the rest of his
career developing MRI.
In 1969, he was the first to publish an article proposing the use of
magnetic resonance to scan human bodies for signs of disease (Mattson
and Simon, 1996, Appendix and Chapter 8). In 1970, he found a major
difference in the MR signals between various tissue types, a discovery
that made the MRI scanner possible. He also discovered the difference
between T1 and T2 relaxation times that allow scanning of body tissues
with enough clarity to enable MRI technology to be used for numerous
practical medical applications (Kevles, 1997). In March of 1971, his
results were published in the journal Science. As a review of the
case in Science concluded, Ă’Damadian published the first paper that
used MRI to distinguish between healthy and cancerous tissueÓ (Vogel,
2003, p. 382). DamadianÕs work was also becoming widely known: as
early as 1973, articles were appearing in popular magazines about his
work (Edelson, 1973, p. 99).
After he published his Science article, Damadian continued to improve
MRI technology. In the spring of 1971, he proposed the MR focus spot
scanning method. In March of 1972, Damadian filed for a patent for
his MR scanner based on his T1 and T2 discovery. In 1977, Damadian
and his graduate students, Michael Goldsmith and Larry Minkoff, built
the first MR scanner, which they named Indomitable. In the same year,
on July 3, they produced the first MRI human body scan. In 1980,
Dr. Damadian introduced the first commercial MRI scanner, which was
built by Fonar Corporation of New York, a company that he founded
(Damadian, 1994, p. 93). In 1983, Damadian introduced the Beta 3000,
a machine that Ă’created quite a stir,Ă“ and drew good responses from
Òdoctors who examined the imagesÓ (Kleinfield, 1985, p. 217).
Soon, several other companies also began building MRI scanners,
forcing Damadian to appeal to the courts to protect his patents.
DamadianÕs concern about how easily someoneÕs patent rights can be
infringed upon (and the harm this problem causes America and our
economy) was detailed in a Saturday Evening Post article that he wrote
(1994, p. 58+). He continued fighting for his patent rights and,
finally, in 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court enforced DamadianÕs 1972
patent, affirming his priority over Lauterbur, and asserting that all
MRI scanners that use DamadianÕs T1 and T2 method to create MRI images
are DamadianÕs property. All of his lawsuits took a full fifteen
years to resolveÑthe first lawsuit in the case was filed in 1982
against Johnson and Johnson (Damadian, 1994, p. 101). The Supreme
Court actually made a special ruling in DamadianÕs case, creating a
whole new category that gave his 1972 patent both validity and
protection.
The damage award from General Electric alone was a 128.7 million
dollars (Siemens, Hitachi, Philips, Shimadzu, and Toshiba all settled
out of court for undisclosed amounts). Damadian poured this money
back into research and development in order to further improve MRI
technology, developing both oblique imaging and multiangle oblique
imaging. He also pioneered what is now called the open MRI, which
does not require the patient to lie in a small confining tube but on a
large open platform. He now manufactures the only open standup MRI on
the market today that allows imaging while the patent is in a vertical
position. Among the many other innovations his company developed are
small, lighter weight, portable MRIĂ•s, and MRIs that can be safely
used in operating rooms.
In 1988, President Ronald Reagan awarded the National Medal of
Technology jointly to Damadian and Lauterbur for their magnetic
resonance technology contributions. In 1989, Damadian was inducted
into the National Inventors Hall of Fame of the U.S. Patent Office.
The first MRI scanner ever builtÑDamadianÕsÑwas placed in the
Smithsonian Institution in the same year. Damadian was also awarded
the seventh annual Lemelson-MIT Lifetime Achievement Award (worth half
a million dollars) on April 25, 2002, for pioneering magnetic
resonance scanning technology. Damadian was later awarded the coveted
Lincoln-Edison medal for his pioneering work in inventing the MRI. In
March of 2004, he was awarded the quarter-million-dollar Franklin
Institute Medal Òfor building the first MRI scannerÓ and for
Ă’achieving the first commercial machine in 1980.Ă“
The record of DamadianÕs achievements, and his priority, are well
documented and supported by these awards, plus his many patents and
dated, refereed publications. Damadian clearly originated the MRI
concept, and Lauterbur even cited DamadianÕs 1971 Science paper in his
notebook, although he did not cite Damadian in his March 1973 Nature
paper, claiming lack of room. Mansfield and his co-authorsÕ work,
which further improved on DamadianÕs and LauterburÕs work, was not
published until 1974.
Furthermore, DamadianÕs contributions in the commercial development of
the MRI machine are also widely recognized. Kean and Smith, in their
standard history of MRI text, note that the two factors that were
primarily responsible for the decision of various research centers and
commercial investments to investigate developing a technique of NMR
imaging in vivo were, first, the work of Damadian and, second, the
impact of CT on medical imaging (1986, p. 1). Lauterbur is mentioned
later, and only then as the originator of the term zeugmatography for
MRI (a term that never caught on!). This definitive history of MRI
concluded:
When a well-known company advertises ÒWe bring good things to lifeÓ
and shows a patient being scanned with MRI, television viewers might
think that magnetic resonance scanning was invented and brought to
market through the efforts of a large team of corporate scientists….
In reality, MR scanning was invented, patented and brought to market
largely through the efforts of one man, a medical doctor, Raymond
V. Damadian, who was assisted along the way by others who believed in
him and his dream. Instead of a deep-pocketed corporate R&D budget,
he had only his salary as a professor and just enough funding
scrounged up from here and there to pay the salaries of his two
graduate assistants and to buy the second-hand components and the
liquid helium used for constructing and cooling his first scanner.
…The academic laboratory in Brooklyn in which the machine was built,
personally gerrymandered with jackhammer and sledgehammer by Damadian
and his associates from quarters once relegated to laboratory rats,
possessed the qualities of a machine shop more than a university
medical lab (1996, p. 611).
The MRI invention was more difficult than it first may appear, because
many of the experts firmly believed that building a magnet large and
powerful enough to image humans was impossible (Kevles, 1997, p. 178).
Scanners today use magnetic fields as much as 80,000 times stronger
than the EarthÕs background magnetic field. A common concern by
researchers was that the MRI magnetic field would affect materials in
the body that are attracted to a magnet, such as iron, which is part
of hemoglobin, ferritin (iron oxide), and other biological
structures. Extensive research has proven this fear unfounded.
Support from Others
Many scientists who had worked with Damadian were upset at the Nobel
committeeÕs slight. One, Dr. Eugene Feigelson, Dean of the State
University New York College of Medicine on Long Island where Damadian
was on the staff, stated Ă’all of MRI rests on the fundamental work of
Dr. DamadianÓ (quoted in Reuters newsletter). Dr. Feigelson added,
Ă’we are perplexed, disappointed and angry about the incomprehensible
exclusionÓ of Dr. Damadian from the Nobel (Montgomery, 2003). Kevles,
in a study of MRI, concluded
in the summer of 1977Ă‘in the footsteps of Edison rather than
RoentgenÑDamadian preempted his scientific competitors. He called a
press conference to introduce and demonstrate a whole-body NMR imaging
machine which he called the Ă’Indomitable.Ă“ Whether or not there really
were contenders for this particular prize at this particular time is
open to discussion. What is not debated is the fact that Damadian,
with his vision of a body-size NMR machine, leaped from using magnets
only large enough to examine tissue specimens in test tubes to
building his own superconducting magnet with a bore (or opening) large
enough to encircle a grown human being. No one else had the
imagination, or hubris, to skip the in-between steps undertaken by
othersÑexamining first small mammals and then parts of the human
bodyÑand jump to the construction of a whole-body machine (1997,
p. 179).
Florida State University professor Michael Ruse concluded that
Damadian was excluded from the Nobel even though
he was the inventor of the first machine that discovers cancers
through magnetic resonance imaging, [rather] the award went to two
other and somewhat subsequent scientists, Paul Lauterbur and Peter
Mansfield. Notoriously, the Nobel committees never reveal their
deliberations (until everyone is long dead) and never change their
minds (2004).
The Claims
Why was Damadian excluded from the Nobel for his many critical
contributions to MRI technology? A common claim by the researchers in
this area is that DamadianÕs technique by itself was not feasible to
produce viable, commercial, economical scanners. It is correctly
noted that DamadianÕs scan took four hours and forty-five minutes to
complete 106 data points, and its resolution was not of the quality
that enabled his system to be used as a practical scanner for pictures
(although he realized that one did not need pictures to diagnose
disease, but this could be done with data points). Lauterbur, after
seeing DamadianÕs results, came up with the idea now known as
one-dimensional imaging involving algebraic and computer algorithm
reconstruction to produce pictures (Hollis, 1987). Lauterbur
eventually submitted his idea to Nature, which rejected the paper
(Kevles, 1997, p. 181). He then revised the paper and resubmitted it.
This time Nature accepted the paper, and it was published in 1973, the
same year that Sir Peter Mansfield published his first paper on his
MRI imaging technique idea.
MansfieldÕs idea was very similar to LauterburÕs, only he described
his idea in terms of the physics of solids rather than liquids, as did
Lauterbur. LauterburÕs and, to a lesser extent, MansfieldÕs, work
produced sufficient improvement to achieve the goal of a viable MRI
scanner for medical diagnosis. Mansfield may have produced the first
MRI image of a live human body using LauterburÕs technique, but not
the first MRI image (Hollis, 1987, pp. 96-97). Damadian had made at
least six previous MRI images of cancer patients. All these facts are
not questioned.
The concern of DamadianÕs supporters is not that Mansfield and,
especially, Lauterbur did not deserve the award, but that Damadian did
the pioneering work and made many of the critical initial discoveries.
Lauterbur and Mansfield only improved upon his discoveries.
Specifically, Lauterbur discovered how radiation in an applied
magnetic field could be used to produce two-dimensional images.
Mansfield showed how the magnetic gradients could be mathematically
analyzed to improve both the speed and the efficiency of the image
generation process, allowing the unit to be even more practicable.
Dr. Damadian first conceived of using T1 and T2 measurements to scan
the body, and today more than ninety-five percent of all MRI scans use
T1 and T2 measurements (Stracher, 2002, p. 2). Furthermore, the will
of Alfred Nobel states that the prize in medicine is to be awarded to
the person that has Ă’made the most important discovery within the
realm of physiology or medicineÓ and not for techniques or inventions
that exploit that discovery, such as the work of Lauterbur and
Mansfield (Fant, 1991, p. 329). The award guidelines for medicine are
different then the chemistry and physics award criteria, which do
allow an award to be given for developing techniques that improve a
previous discovery.
Comparisons with the Wright Brothers
A parallel with the invention of the airplane is critical to
illustrate DamadianÕs case. The Wright brothers achieved the specific
discoveries that made the first heavier-than-air manned flight
possible, but their crude, rickety contraption was totally
impractical. For example, the Wright brothersÕ first successful plane
flight on December 17, 1903, required the pilot to recline on a wood
frame covered with paper and cloth, and used skis to land. The craft
flew only 852 feet, and was in the air for only twelve seconds. The
Wrights operated their plane using wing-warping controls rigged to
their hips (Scheider, 2003, p. 502). Furthermore, numerous aspects of
the Wright brothersÕ design had to be modified. For example, the tail
had to be placed near the rear rather than on the front, as it was in
the Wright brothersÕ plane, before manned flight was practical (Jakob,
1990).
Many important improvements to the plane were made by others, such as
Glenn Curtiss, who invented the hinged aileron (a development that
even the Wright brothersÕ planes later used) (Combs, 1979).
Nonetheless, no one today claims that Curtiss invented the airplane,
even though his invention is the basis of modern aviationÑcredit is
rightfully given to the Wright brothers because they were the ones who
first made the critical developments that made flight possible,
especially the wing design that created liftÑand they were the first
humans to fly in a heavier-than-air craft (Jakob, 1990). The specific
landmark steps in MRI technology made by Damadian are as follows:
1) his scientific research and theory of the cell that led him to
consider NMR as a method for detecting cancer;
2) his discovery of the cancer NMR scanning signal in animal tissue
together with the demonstration of the diversity of NMR relaxation
times among healthy tissues;
3) his building of a superconducting magnet (all of his competition
were experimenting
with permanent magnets);
4) his filing of the original (and the foremost) patent on NMR
scanning;
5) his achievement of the first whole-body NMR scan of a human and the
resultant image;
6) his development of the worldÕs first commercial NMR scanners
(Mattson and Simon, 1996, p. 613).
DamadianÕs first MRI machine used a point-by-point analysis, a very
impractical approach for scanning. Nonetheless, as noted above, his
T1 and T2 observation Ă’was an Eureka moment for Paul Lauterbur. After
seeing Dr. DamadianÕs experiment repeated by a graduate student,
Mr. Lauterbur dined at a hamburger joint, where he . . . realized he
could subject the nuclei to a second magnetic field that varied in
strength in a precise wayÓ (Stacher, 2003, p. 2). Lauterbur then
realized that he could use this technique to construct an image, a
conclusion that he recorded in a notebook and had witnessed the next
day. As Stracher notes, Ă’Over the years, Mr. Lauterbur has been less
than forthcoming about giving Dr. Damadian credit. In his notebook he
acknowledged Dr. DamadianÕs 1971 paper, but his subsequent articles
didnÕt mention it. Mr. Lauterbur explains that by the time he
published his first paper, another group had made measurements on a
tumor in a mouseÕs tail. ÒI needed to keep the list of references to
very few, so I used Ôthe later oneÕÓ (2003, p. 2). Others have
observed that LauterburÕs achievement, in essence, involved taking the
signals and drawing them on a piece of paper quickly and
efficientlyÑclearly a major improvement, but hardly the initial
discovery.
The fact is, Damadian is the pioneer of MRI, has the first patents,
and built the first MRI scanner; conversely, Lauterbur only augmented
DamadianÕs accomplished work. Although Lauterbur succeeded in getting
a much better MRI image, Damadian built the first workable unit;
Lauterbur only refined the technique. This is like crediting Curtis
for inventing the airplane, and snubbing the Wright brothers.
Although LauterburÕs technique is used with DamadianÕs equipment
today, just as all modern planes use CurtisÕs improvements, this
should not detract from the WrightsÕ, nor DamadianÕs, original
developments.
Philip Yam (2003, p. 42), noted that controversies about the Nobel
Prize award are not uncommon, but that Òthe Nobel committeeÕs decision
in this case, however, seemed to be an intentional slap in DamadianÕs
face. Award rules permit up to three winners in each category, so the
committee could have included Damadian. Curiously, the NobelÕs press
release describing the winners typically acknowledge other
contributors, but failed to mention Damadian.Ă“ In most articles about
the award, Damadian was totally ignored (e.g. The Fort Wayne, Indiana
Journal Gazette ÒMRI Pioneers Win Nobel PrizeÓ Tuesday, October 7,
2003, p. 3a).
The Background of DamadianÕs Work
DamadianÕs education is important in understanding his contributions.
He was studying violin at the world famous Juilliard School of Music
when he triumphed over 10,000 other applicants and was awarded a Ford
Foundation Scholarship at age fifteen, enabling him to go to the
University of Wisconsin to complete a degree in math, and then on to
the Albert Einstein School of Medicine where he earned his M.D. He
later completed graduate work in biophysics at Harvard University.
His interest was not in clinical practice, but in research and
development. As noted above, he first became interested in medicine
at the age of ten after witnessing the pain and suffering that
resulted from his grandmotherÕs cancer. He wished to create new
methods that would aid in diagnosing disease at an earlier stageÑwhen
it was still treatable (Mattson and Simon, 1996, p. 623).
The Patents
In a review of the MRI patents, I found Lauterbur had only four that
related to MRI; Peter Mansfield had a total of seventeen; and Damadian
a total of sixty-oneÑincluding many of the most important patents, for
MRI apparatus. No MRI unit can be manufactured today without
reference to DamadianÕs patents.
In spite of his incontestable patents, Damadian faced a long struggle
to vindicate his patent claims. A 1982 jury trial found DamadianÕs
MRI patent valid and infringed upon by his competitors. Yet, six
weeks after the trial, the judge voided the juryÕs verdict and
substituted his own verdict, even though DamadianÕs company had spent
2.2 million dollars in legal fees during the lawsuit. Damadian
appealed the decision and eventually prevailed in the highest court of
the land in October 1997. The Wright brothers also spent years in
court defending their claims, and they too were finally vindicated by
the Supreme Court .
DamadianÕs Religious Beliefs Central to the Case
Damadian became a born again Christian in 1957 at a Billy Graham
Crusade in Madison Square Garden, New York (Chuvala, 1996). Extensive
reading and study on science and theology since then has put his faith
on firm footing, especially on the creation/evolution question.
Furthermore, he has been active in this controversyÑe.g. HeibertÕs
article ÒDarwin Wins Friends in RomeÓ in British Columbia Report dated
Nov. 11, 1996, pp. 30-31.
Numerous articles have commented that DamadianÕs religious beliefs
were central to why he was denied the Nobel award. For example, a
Christianity Today article suggested that the reason for the Nobel
Prize CommitteeÕs snubbing Damadian was because he is a devout
Christian and a creationist. In an excellent article about the Nobel
Prize and Damadian in Scientific American, Yam (2003, p. 42) asked,
Ă’… did his creationist viewpoint play a role? He is on the
technical advisory board of the Institute for Creation Research.Ă“
Damadian is also on the reference board for Answers in Genesis
Creation Museum. Furthermore, Damadian is Ă’identified by many
websites as a prominent creation scientistÓ and, according to Olsen,
Ă’most scientists are not creationists and [they] tend to look askance
at scientists who believe that wayÓ (2003). Vision magazineÕs Ronald
Bailey added that the Nobel committee could have been Ă’swayed by the
fact that Damadian, although a brilliant inventor, is apparently a
creation science nut. In ironic contrast, LauterburÕs current
research is on the chemical origins of lifeÓ (quoted in Olsen, 2003).
Colleagues had mentioned to Damadian many years ago that his stand on
creationism may create problems for him in earning a Nobel Prize
because of the scientific establishmentÕs clear bias against this
worldview (Richards, 2003, p. 1). Ruse concluded that perhaps
Dr. Damadian does have good reasons to believe that he was passed over
due to his beliefs. Ruse wrote that Damadian
is not just an inventor, but also a very prominent Christian. And not
just a Christian of any bland kind, but a Creation ScientistÑone of
those people who believes that the Bible, especially including
Genesis, is absolutely literally trueÑsix days of creation, Adam and
Eve the first humans, universal flood, and all of the rest. It is at
least as likely a hypothesis that Damadian was ignored by the Nobel
committee because they did not want to award a Prize to an American
fundamentalist Christian as that they did not think his work merited
the fullest accolade. In the eyes of rational EuropeansÑand Swedes are
nothing if not rational EuropeansÑit is bad enough that such people
exist, let alone give them added status and a pedestal from which to
preach their silly ideas. Especially a scientific pedestal from which
to preach their silly anti-science ideas. Is this unfair? One
certainly feels a certain sympathy for the Nobel committee. Creation
science is wrong and (if taught to young people as the truth)
dangerous. It does represent everything against which good science
stands (2004).
Ruse added that DamadianÕs situation should be looked at from an
historical perspective. For example, he notes that even the most well
respected scientists have believed in
some very strange things, and if we start judging one area of their
work in terms of other beliefs that they have, we could well do more
harm than good. Isaac Newton, the greatest scientist of them all, had
some very strange views about the proper interpretation of such
Biblical books as Daniel and Revelation, and in respects believed
things about the universeĂ‘its past and its futureĂ‘that make today’s
Creation Scientists seem comparatively mild. More recently, Alfred
Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of natural selection along with
Charles Darwin, became an enthusiast for spiritualism, believing that
there are hidden forces controlling every aspect of life. People knew
this and were embarrassed by it, but it did not stop them from
celebrating and praising Wallace’s great scientific work. He was made
a Fellow of the Royal Society, and given Britain’s greatest award for
achievement, the Order of Merit (2004).
Ruse is not saying this because he a creationist sympathizer. He
notes that all of his life he has
fought for evolution and against CreationismÑin writings, on the
podium, and in court in 1981 as a witness in Arkansas against a law
demanding that Creation Science be taught alongside evolution in the
state supported schools. But as one who loves science above all and
thinks it the greatest triumph of the human spiritÑas one who has no
religious beliefs whatsoeverÑI cringe at the thought that Raymond
Damadian was refused his just honor because of his religious
beliefs. Having silly ideas in one field is no good reason to deny
merit for great ideas in another field. Apart from the fact that this
time the Creation Scientists will think that there is good reason to
think that they are the objects of unfair treatment at the hands of
the scientific community (2004).
DamadianÕs position on certain issues also contradicts the direction
that many people are trying to take our country, e.g., Creation Ex
nihilo 16(3):35-37, June-August 1994, ÒSuper-scientist slams societyÕs
spiritual sicknessÓ). Damadian has often spoken openly about his
religious beliefs. For example, he did a seminar at Pittsberg State
University at Pittsberg, New York, in October of 2000 on creation
science (Richards, 2003).
No doubt the Nobel Prize committee felt that awarding Damadian the
Nobel Prize would legitimize his creation views, the same reason why
well known science writter Forrest Mims was fired as a scientific
writer for Scientific American. They told him as a writer for one of
AmericaÕs top science magazines he would give credibility to creation,
and for this reason only he was fired. Wilder-Smith documented
another case similar to DamadianÕs:
the situation is such today that any scientist expressing doubts about
evolutionary theory is rapidly silenced. Sir Fred Hoyle, the famous
astronomer, was well on his way to being nominated for the Nobel
Prize. However, after the appearance of his books expressing
mathematically based doubts as to Darwinism, he was rapidly
eliminated. His books were negatively reviewed and no more was heard
about his Nobel Prize (1987, p. iii).
Reasons Offered Not to Award Damadian
Some people believe that Damadian was not awarded the prize because he
choose to leave academia and pursue research at his own company. This
reasoning is hardly valid because many academics have left the Ivy
Tower to continue their research elsewhere. Some, such as William
Shockley, the inventor of the transistor, and the Wright brothers,
even founded companies that allowed them to profit from their
discoveries.
Others claim DamdianÕs denial was due to resentment because he
defended his patent rights in court. Damadian is often characterized
as rash and litigious for pursuing the court cases to save his company
(Stracher, 2002, p. 2). Although a number of individuals in the MRI
community have criticized him for doing this, Damadian had no choice
because fighting for his patent rights was a matter of his companyÕs
survival. It is very common for inventors to be forced to defend
their patents in courtÑEdison, Bell, Marconi, and Philo Farnsworth,
the inventor of the TV, all had to do so.
Likewise, the Wright brothers had no choice but to defend their
patents and spent many years in court, including five years in
litigation with Herring-Curtiss Company. The court also eventually
vindicated the Wrights, and ruled that they held the Òpioneer patentÓ
on manned flight (Combs, 1979, p. 357). The Wrights engaged in a
dozen lawsuits in three nations. Of those cases that went to court,
the Wrights won every one, as did Damadian (Combs, 1979, p. 357). One
difference in the WrightsÕ and DamadianÕs case is that the Smithsonian
spent almost forty years trying to discredit the Wright brothers, but
has formally acknowledged Damadian as the inventor of MRI.
Many competitors have unscrupulously attacked DamadianÕs personality,
claiming that his ÒegotismÓ and ÒmegalomaniaÓ was the issue. This is
name calling, and it is not rare to accuse potential Nobel laureates
of this fault. Another claim is that Damadian once walked out of a
professional meeting. This is hardly a reason to deny the award. No
indication was given as to why he walked out. Perhaps he went the
bathroom, had a late appointment, or did not feel well. According to
my experience and the persons I interviewed (such as Roger Richards),
Damadian is a hardworking, devoted Christian. Richards said he is
Òone of the most inspiring, humble, and intelligent menÓ he has ever
met, and furthermore, he is a very generous man. For example,
Damadian Ă’refused to accept any compensation for coming to speak at a
seminar Richards gave, and stayed for hours afterward answering
studentÕs questions. . .Ó (2003, p. 1). Richards adds (p. 3) that
Damadian is also a Ă’witty and pleasant individual who is not one to
put on airs.Ă“ Even if Damadian were egotistical and had some
personality quirks, these are not valid reasons to deny him a Nobel
Prize. Kary Mullis, the inventor of PCR, clearly had some personality
issues, yet was given the award
Kary Mullis is not likely to fit most peopleÕs profile of a serious
scientist. He is a man who quit the lab to work in a restaurant, a
man who had a midnight brawl on a beach with a fellow researcher, a
man who elicits both giggles and awe from other scientists. Yet
Mullis, 48, … is responsible for what many consider the most
important advance in genetic research since the discovery of DNAĂ•s
double helix … his inventionĂ‘the polymerase chain reaction, or
PCRĂ‘has revolutionized microbiology, medical diagnostics, criminal
investigation, even evolution (Dwyer, 1993, p. 8).
Mullis also
speaks with some bitterness about the years that followed his
discovery. He was turned down flat by prestigious journals when he
tried to publish his findings. He remembers the reception to his idea
by colleagues at Cetus as ice cold. Then, he maintains, as PCR was
taking off, they sought to attach themselves to its development (1993,
p. 10).
Nor is Damadian the only controversial case when it comes to the
awarding of a Nobel Prize. Jonas Salk, the inventor of the Salk polio
vaccine, was not awarded the prize, although Dr. Enders was (in 1954).
Frederick Banting and his boss J.J.R. McCleod (who was on vacation at
the time) were awarded the Nobel, and Charles Best (who, as is well
documented, actually discovered the use of insulin treatment for
diabetes), was not.
The attacks against Damadian began long before he was successful.
McAuliffe wrote:
When Dr. Raymond Damadian proposed in 1971 that body images more vivid
than X-rays could be produced with a machine that measures magnetic
properties of atoms, he was considered crazy. Critics called his
theory, which built upon a phenomenon known as nuclear magnetic
resonance, Ă’visionary nonsense.Ă“ Prestigious scientific journals
refused to publish his findings, and government funding bodies refused
to support his research…. This rigorous early training promoted his
mastery of science. Nothing, however, could prepare Damadian for the
hostility with which his colleagues greeted his ideas. Ă’I believe the
source of their anger,Ă“ says Damadian, Ă’was that my findings
overturned theories upon which literally thousands of scientists had
pinned their reputations (1987, p. 66).
Conclusion
In conclusion, a strong case can be made that DamadianÕs beliefs about
origins was the reason for his not receiving the award, and that he is
the legal and rightful inventor of the MRI machine. Consequently he
rightfully should have received the award.
Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Shelley Hausch and Bert
Thompson, Ph.D. for their critical review of an earlier version of
this manuscript.
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