Lane, John
LANE, MD, John Michael
John Michael Lane, MD, died October 21 in his Atlanta home among family.
Born in Boston February 14, 1936, Dr. Lane grew up in Greenwich, CT, the son of Alfred Baker Lewis and Eileen O'Connor. His father was a pro bono attorney and then treasurer of the NAACP in its early years. Dr. Lane once said that he "grew up rocking on Thurgood Marshal's knee."
His parents also sponsored refugees from WWI Europe, and his mother was active in the national YWCA and Planned Parenthood.
Dr. Lane attended the Brunswick School in Greenwich, Yale University (Magna Cum Laude, 1957), and Harvard Medical School, (1961) followed by a fellowship in infectious disease at the Mallory Institute, Harvard Medical Service. He interned at Bellevue Hospital in New York, and was struck by his experience there of the importance of behavior and social factors in alleviating disease.
He joined the then-named Center for Disease Control in 1963 and first served in the Epidemic Intelligence Service in Pittsburgh, PA. As an epidemiologist for Atlanta's CDC, Dr. Lane participated in famine relief during the Biafran civil war, and in surveillance and immunization for smallpox, measles and yellow fever in several African and Asian countries, as well as tuberculosis and AIDS at home.
From the mid-sixties, he was acting chief and then chief of the smallpox unit of the Communicable Disease Center in Atlanta. He then pursued an MPH in epidemiology at the University of California at Berkeley (MPH, 1968), where, for several years, he taught the subject.
During the worldwide effort to eradicate smallpox, Dr. Lane worked in West Africa, India, Indonesia, and Yugoslavia. He credited the international cooperation of local governments, tribal leaders, and the thousands of volunteers worldwide, directed by CDC under the auspices of the World Health Organization, with the only eradication of an infectious disease in history.
He served as a chief of operations in the Smallpox Eradication Program and was its last director. His seminal research and writing influenced U.S. policy; in particular, his journal article on adverse events following smallpox vaccination preceded the decision to discontinue vaccinations in the U.S.
Dr. Lane ended his career at CDC as director of the Center for Prevention Services.
Dr. Lane was professor and coordinator of the Emory University School of Medicine's MPH program until 1991 and afterward professor in Emory's department of community and preventive medicine.
In 1990 he lived in Canberra, Australia where he founded the Australian Field Epidemiology, and became its director. He returned to Emory University School of Medicine in 1993 to direct its physician assistant program and also taught pre-doctoral students in the department of family and preventive medicine. .
Although Dr. Lane retired in 2000, the 9-11 strikes on the World Trade Center the following fall reopened a need for his expertise. Smallpox was imagined to be a threat to international security, given the potential availability of the virus, which remains locked in depositories in the U.S. and Russia, and also the possibility of fabricating it artificially.
Consultant on smallpox and vaccinia to CDC, NIH, NIAID, the U.S. Army, state public health departments, and to several vaccine developers on smallpox and vaccinia, he wrote numerous journal articles or book chapters on smallpox as a bioweapon, He served on conference panels as late as July of last year.
Dr. Lane was a lifetime member of the Sierra Club and the Nature Conservancy. He was an athlete much of his life, particularly as a long distance runner, and all but legendary as a promoter of fitness as the Decatur-DeKalb YMCA, where he was a board member. Somewhat of an expert on sea life, he scuba dived from his teenage years until his late 70s. He was as graceful as a dolphin in the water. A birder for many years, he also backpacked, and preferred vacations in his tent in a forest.
Survivors include his wife, Lila Summer Lane, his daughter Cynthia Michelle Edward (m. Walter Edward) of Mt. Pleasant, SC, step-daughter Annabel Holland Moore of Vancouver, BC, and two adored grandchildren Chase Michael Edward and Sage Olivier Edward. Cynthia is Dr. Lane's daughter with his former wife, Carolina Hernandez Lane.
Dr. Lane is also survived by by an older brother, Dr. Roger Lane (Marjorie) of Haverford, PA, and a half-brother Dr. Alfred Baker Lewis II (Ellen) of New York, and two half-sisters, Caroline Lewis of Anchorage, and Dr. Helena Fales Lewis of Cambridge, MA, and many nieces and nephews.
A memorial was held by the immediate family, who plan a public celebration of his life on the anniversary of his death, COVID permitting.
Memorial contributions, if any, can be directed to the Decatur-DeKalb YMCA or to the Nature Conservancy,
