Dr. Paul F. Wehrle, 82; Expert in Infectious Diseases
Dr. Paul F. Wehrle, an expert in communicable and infectious diseases and Hastings professor of pediatrics who was chairman of the USC department of pediatrics from 1961 to 1988, has died. He was 82.
Wehrle died Tuesday in San Clemente of complications from a prolonged illness.
In 1969, Wehrle spent a year as a medical officer for the Geneva-based World Health Organization, working on smallpox eradication. After vaccinating people in Africa, South America, Nepal, India and Afghanistan, he signed the official proclamation declaring worldwide eradication of the disease.
In addition to his work in eradicating smallpox, early in his career Wehrle helped with clinical trials of the Salk polio vaccine. After moving to Los Angeles, he served as technical advisor to the L.A. County Medical Assn.’s Sabin on Sundays, a program that administered the oral Sabin vaccine to children.
Although Wehrle specialized in pediatrics and the prevention of communicable diseases among children, he was also known for his research into diseases and environmental hazards that affect all ages, such as air pollution.
As a resident of San Marino during his long tenure at USC, for example, he studied the San Marino High School track team to chart the inverse relationship between ozone and athletic performance. When the air was clean, he found, cross-country runners improved at a steady rate as they progressed through a season of 21 meets. On smoggy days, there was no improvement, and many athletes ran slower.
Wehrle also served on the Air Pollution Training Committee of the U.S. Public Health Service, helping to educate people about mitigating the effects of problem air. He often spoke out about flare-ups of communicable diseases in Southern California, including a measles epidemic in the late 1980s. The problem was exacerbated, he said, by budget cutbacks and a sharp reduction in community-based public health nurses, which left many poor and immigrant children without immunization.
“I think it is an absolutely unmitigated disgrace that we have measles in the numbers that we do in Southern California,” he told The Times in 1990. “And it cannot be helped by pouring vaccine willy-nilly into the population.... You have to know the people who are your targets.”
Born in Ithaca, N.Y., and raised in Tucson, Wehrle earned a biology degree at the University of Arizona and his medical degree with honors from Tulane University School of Medicine.
He taught at the universities of Illinois and Pittsburgh, Johns Hopkins University and State University of New York before he was recruited to head the pediatrics unit at USC in 1961. After his retirement in 1988, he spent two years as interim chairman of pediatrics at UC Irvine.
A prolific writer and editor of scholarly articles and textbooks on infectious diseases and environmental hazards, Wehrle also served as president and vice president of the American Academy of Pediatrics and president of the International Congress of Pediatrics.
Wehrle is survived by his wife of nearly 60 years, Beth; four sons, Paul A. of San Antonio, Karl of La Jolla, Larry of Pasadena and Malcolm of La Canada; a sister, Ellen Meehan of San Gabriel; and 12 grandchildren.
The family has asked that instead of flowers, memorial donations be sent to a favorite charity.
