It could occur more rapidly than anyone dares dream. Dr. Beasley's achievements have brought him widespread acclaim. Last January, Queen Sirikit of Thailand presented him with the 1999 Prince Mahidol Award for Medicine for his work on the hepatitis B virus. The annual award, named in honor of a Thai prince who worked to improve public health in his native country, is bestowed annually based on the recommendation of an international panel of experts. It stands as a lesson to all concerning the power of epidemiology as an investigative approach in this area of research.
Epidemiology is the study of how infectious diseases move through populations.
Indeed, for Dr. Beasley, the human side of research has always been at least as interesting and challenging as the work he and his colleagues do in the laboratory. When he first went to Taiwan in 1972, he says, he wondered about the reasons for the high prevalence of hepatitis B in the local population. Since it appeared to be a relatively old disease, he considered how this blood-borne virus might have been transmitted in nature prior to the advent of blood transfusions, a recent procedure. Dr. Beasley asked rhetorically. From mothers to babies.