December 18 in Medical History
13 entries: discoveries, epidemics, drugs and the people who shaped medicine.
Events
- Dutch 2nd Chamber accepts minister Van Agts abortion laws
- IRA's Sean McKenna becomes critically ill, ends hunger strike
- Six health workers dispensing polio vaccinations are gunned down in Pakistan
- International body Covax, established to distribute COVID-19 vaccines to low and middle income countries, announces deals with vaccine manufacturers and method for countries to share excess vaccines
- Moderna COVID-19 vaccine granted emergency authorization by US Food and Drug Administration
- South Africa announces detection of new variant of COVID-19, called 501.V2, which is driving a second wave of infections
- Pence Receives VaccineUS Vice President Mike Pence receives the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine live on TV
Born on this day
- Emil StarkensteinCzech pharmacologist, co-founded clinical pharmacology (died 1942)
- Esther LederbergAmerican microbiologist (died 2006)
- Harold E. VarmusAmerican scientist (1989 Nobel Prize for Medicine or Physiology for cellular origin of retroviral oncogenes.), born in Oceanside, New York
- Judy HeumannAmerican disability rights activist, and author, born in Brooklyn, New York (d. 2023)
Died on this day
- Joseph ZubinLithuanian-American psychologist and academic (born 1900)
- Robert GoodmanBritish child psychiatrist known for developing the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), dies at 72