Obituaries - June 9, 1999
Dennis Bregman; Predicted AIDS Cases Would Level Off
Dennis Bregman, 49, a former statistician and epidemiologist who co-authored a controversial 1990 study that predicted the leveling off of AIDS cases in the United States. Bregman worked at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta from 1975 to 1986 as director of statistics. He later worked at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in Cincinnati and was an assistant professor of preventive medicine at USC from 1990 to 1993. In 1990, Bregman and Alexander Langmuir, a former Centers for Disease Control chief of epidemiology, were among the first to develop a way to predict the number of AIDS cases in the United States. Their study, published in the Journal of the American Medical Assn., was based on a 150-year-old epidemiological theory called Farr’s Law that said epidemics follow the pattern of a bell-shaped curve. Using that model and figures on the reported cases of AIDS in the United States through 1987, Bregman and Langmuir concluded by extrapolation that the AIDS epidemic had been on the wane since 1988 and would result in little more than 200,000 U.S. cases. Their prediction was roundly criticized by experts who feared that, if taken seriously, it would jeopardize funding for treatment and research on a cure. The number of AIDS cases did fall over the last decade, although not to the degree that Bregman and Langmuir had predicted. During his years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bregman also played an instrumental role on the investigative teams that identified Legionnaire’s disease and toxic shock syndrome. He also helped provide crucial data that changed government policy on the swine flu vaccination. On May 28 of a heart attack at his Granada Hills home.
Lloyd Burke; Medal of Honor Winner Served in 3 Wars
Lloyd Burke, 74, who served in three wars and earned the Medal of Honor for his heroism in Korea. The Army veteran had recently attended the dedication in Indianapolis of a memorial honoring every person who has received the Medal of Honor, the country’s highest award for military valor. Burke enlisted in 1943 and served in World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War before his retirement in 1978. He earned the medal as a lieutenant for leading his battalion to secure a hill that had been occupied by the enemy Oct. 28, 1951, after 23 days of fighting. Burke always said he was surprised to receive the medal, presented to him by President Harry S. Truman in 1952, for what he considered just doing his job. On June 1 in Hot Springs, Ark.
Dr. Joseph L. Butterfield; Pioneer Neonatologist
Dr. Joseph L. Butterfield, 72, a pioneer in neonatology. Butterfield was medical director of the Children’s Hospital of Denver when in 1965 he created the Children’s Newborn Center, one of the first programs in the nation devoted to the care of babies up to 2 months old. As the center’s reputation grew, it began to receive critically ill infants from Nebraska, Wyoming, New Mexico and other states and soon became a national model for other hospitals seeking to provide regional perinatal care. Butterfield led a 10-year campaign for a U.S. postage stamp honoring Dr. Virginia Apgar, whose name was given to the procedure used around the world to measure the health of newborns after birth. Butterfield met Apgar in 1962, almost a decade after she developed the test. After several years teaching delivery room workers at his hospital how to use the test to assess a baby’s skin color, pulse, reflexes, activity and breathing, he and a colleague used the letters of Apgar’s name to help them remember the vital functions being tested: A was for appearance, P for pulse, G for grimace, A for activity and R for respiration. The stamp commemorating the achievements of the woman who developed the test was issued in 1994. Butterfield, who experienced the death of one of his daughters when she was 23, also founded an innovative neonatal hospice program to support parents coping with the death of a newborn baby. He was a staunch advocate in the legislative arena on issues related to newborns and their families. On Tuesday of a heart attack at his home in Denver.
