A pair of prominent physicians who died in the Swissair crash were mourned yesterday as giants in the global fight against AIDS who shared both science and love.
Dr. Jonathan Mann, founder of the World Health Organization's AIDS program, and his wife, Dr. Mary Lou Clements-Mann, longtime director of vaccine research at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, were flying to Geneva to help plan a new international strategy against AIDS. Both 51, they lived in Columbia.
"We've lost the greatest spokesman for health and human rights America, and we've lost a brilliant mind in vaccine development," said Dr. Michael Merson, dean of public health at Yale University School of Medicine.
Dr. Alfred Sommer, dean of the Hopkins School of Public Health, said: "Their loss will be felt deeply by all of us here and by the thousands, if not millions, of people who live better lives today because of their work."
Admirers saw Mann as as a charismatic, compassionate advocate who -- perhaps more than anyone else -- persuaded a reluctant world to confront the AIDS epidemic. Clements-Mann was described as a gentle woman who could also be a tough taskmaster in her efforts to run complex tests of vaccines against a range of diseases.
After meeting three years ago at a scientific conference, the two quickly fell in love and formed an intense bond. "They complemented each other tremendously," said Dr. David Schwartz, a Hopkins AIDS researcher. "They were soul mates."
News of the tragedy spread yesterday by fax, telephone and e-mail to the couple's colleagues around the world. Shock and grief spread throughout Hopkins' School of Public Health and the University of Maryland's vaccine program, where Clements-Mann worked in the 1980s.
"My first reaction was the unfairness of it all -- that somebody as talented and important to health and happiness should be taken like this," said Dr. Donald Berg, director of the Hopkins Center for Immunization Research.
An impromptu memorial ceremony was held yesterday afternoon WHO's office in Geneva. Another is scheduled for 11 a.m. today at the Pan American Health Organization's office in Washington.
One of Mann's greatest contributions was demonstrating that every individual in every country is vulnerable to AIDS, other scientists say. He made leaders realize it was a global threat.
In 1984, when the world knew little of the disease, Mann was one of the first scientists to go to the heart of the epidemic in the Congo and bring the news back to the world. In 1986, he created the World Health Organization's Global Program on AIDS, with only a secretary for staff.
Eventually, Mann was able to raise $120 million and help control the spread of the disease in such poor countries as Uganda and Senegal, said Dr. Fernando Zacarias, an AIDS director with the Pan American Health Organization, who traveled the globe with Mann.
Linked health and rights
Mann is credited with forcefully speaking out about the link between health and human rights. He argued against health policies such as Cuba's warehousing of HIV-positive people in sanitariums, and he worked with governments to protect the rights of those at risk. In 1987, he started World AIDS Day. In 1993, he founded a center for health and human rights at the Harvard School of Public Health.
In speeches around the world and in his book, "AIDS in the World," Mann argued that changes in individual behavior were ++ not enough to quell the AIDS epidemic. There needed to be fundamental social changes, he said, such as education and job training for women in the Third World.
A dapper man who wore starched white shirts and red bow ties, Mann commuted by train to Philadelphia each day, where since January he was helping to build the School of Public Health at Allegheny University of the Health Sciences.
A voracious reader, Mann was a Boston native who spoke four languages. He was educated at Harvard University and got his medical degree at Washington University in St. Louis. He had worked for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta before joining WHO. Since summer 1997, he had been a visiting professor at the Hopkins School of Public Health.
Clements-Mann was raised in Longview, Texas. She graduated from Texas Tech University with a degree in chemistry, and then from the University of Texas (Southwestern) Medical School in Dallas. She also earned advanced degrees from the University of London and from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.
From 1980 to 1985, she headed adult clinical trials at the University of Maryland's Center for Vaccine Development. There, she was instrumental in designing trials of a vaccine against rotavirus, one of the leading causes of diarrhea around the world. The vaccine was finally approved by the Food and Drug Administration this week.
Great predictor of success
In 1986, she moved to Hopkins to start and direct its vaccine center. She remained in that position until last year, when she took a leave of absence after marrying Mann. She returned after a few months, no longer holding her title but continuing as principal investigator on major trials.
Her expertise was in selecting experimental vaccines that stood the best chance of success, and in designing and running clinical trials that could involve a dozen or several thousand people.
"Part of her genius was to recognize new candidates that showed promise," said Berg, adding that she might have been most proud of her work on the just-approved rotavirus vaccine. She designed trials "that were safe to individuals and that would generate the maximum amount of scientific information."
Among her many efforts, she planned trials of a new flu vaccine and an AIDS vaccine made from a canary pox virus. That vaccine is about to undergo testing among human volunteers in Uganda. Another trial involved an experimental AIDS vaccine that uses an altered strain of salmonella as a vehicle.
Recently, she finished enrolling volunteers for a trial of a vaccine against hepatitis C, an emerging threat to public health.
"Mary Lou worked on the world stage," said Berg. "She had collaborators and students from all around the world." Besides consulting on vaccine trials, she lectured extensively in Third World countries on the management of diarrheal diseases.
"She was very driven," said Berg. "She was not the easiest person to work with, but that's because she set and maintained high standards. People around her either produced or they heard about it."
Jane Reynolds, a nurse practitioner who coordinated the vaccine studies, said Clements-Mann enjoyed meeting the people who volunteered to take the vaccines. "She was able to speak in terms that they understood," she said. "It's funny. She liked to be called Mary Lou, even by the volunteers."
Marriage gave inspiration
Dr. David Schwartz, who works on the basic science behind AIDS vaccines, said she managed to remain optimistic despite the continuing frustrations that have led many scientists to question whether a vaccine will ever be found.
"I have to say, a few years ago we were all getting a little tired. Then she began her relationship and soon after married Jonathan Mann, and that really renewed her optimism. It's what he was all about."
Last year, Mann charged that the United States wasn't doing enough to support vaccine research. He said the emphasis was on developing expensive treatments that poor countries could never afford.
"She was extremely proud to be coupled with this man," Schwartz said. "It was very important to her that people meet him and get to know him."
Christmas wedding
They married on Christmas, 1996, each for the second time. Clements-Mann did not have children, but Mann had three grown children: twins Naomi and Lydia, and a son, Aaron. His son recently went to Africa as a Peace Corps volunteer.
In their Columbia neighborhood of Hickory Ridge, the Manns were known for taking walks and for holding hands. Clements-Mann loved to garden.
Neighbor Barbara Schwartz said she was planning a cocktail party to celebrate the Manns' marriage. "This is such a terrible tragedy."
Dr. Henry Seidel, their neighbor, said the couple traveled extensively and loved to camp.
"They really were an affectionate pair," he said. Through their picture window, they could be seen sitting on a small love seat "holding hands and watching the tube."
Plans for services were incomplete last night.
Clements-Mann is survived by her mother, Mary Still Clements of Longview, Texas, and two sisters, Ann Rhew of Floresville, Texas, and Paula Conley of Fort Worth.
In addition to his children, Mann is survived by his mother, Ida, of Newton, Mass.; two brothers, Gerald, of California, and Joshua, in Israel; and a sister, Carol, in Wyoming.
Pub Date: 9/04/98