In 1981, Michael Gregg, editor of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, published an editorial note on five cases of an extremely rare infection. The report noted that the patients were all male homosexuals, suggesting that the infection might be linked to sexual contact. Gregg had just alerted the world to AIDS.
An epidemiologist whose editorial efforts also brought attention to toxic shock syndrome, Legionnaire's disease and Reye's syndrome, Michael B. Gregg, '52, died July 9. He was 78.
Gregg graduated from Western Reserve U. School of Medicine in Cleveland. He entered the U.S. Public Health Service in 1959, working at the National Institutes of Health Rocky Mountain Laboratory before undergoing further training in infectious diseases in Lahore, Pakistan. In 1966 he joined the CDC and trained epidemiologists.
In 1967, he became editor of the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Under his leadership, the MMWR was considered not only a compendium of disease statistics, but also a publication that could put that information into perspective for readers. In addition to its weekly publication, the CDC printed extra issues when warranted by national health events. Gregg published one such issue in 1976 when some patients vaccinated against swine flu developed the nervous-system disorder Guillain-Barré syndrome. After the MMWR issue came out, the national vaccination campaign was stopped immediately. "Distributing objective scientific information, albeit often preliminary, to the public at large, MMWR has filled that critical time gap between the immediacy of the news media's interpretation and the long wait for publication in the scientific journals," said a 1996 CDC report.
Gregg, known informally as the CDC's poet laureate, also edited a widely used textbook, Field Epidemiology, and led the CDC's epidemic intelligence service, which tracks down mysterious medical problems. He remained editor of the MMWR until 1988 and retired from the CDC a year later.
Survivors: his wife of 50 years, Mary Lila; three daughters, Jennifer Geise, Marianne Lawrence and Pamela McFadden; seven grandchildren; two brothers; and a sister.
