Boston, MA: Louis Lasagna, the so-called “Sigmund Freud of clinical pharmacology” and former dean of Tufts University’s Sackler School of Graduate Biomedical Sciences, died Thursday, August 7, of lymphoma. He was 80 years old.
Lasagna was a pioneer in the field of drug evaluation and clinical pharmacology. He made history in 1954, publishing one of the first scientific papers documenting the “placebo effect” in patients. Decades later, the noted British medical journal, The Lancet, included Dr. Lasagna’s article on a list of the world’s 27 most notable medical achievements since the time of Hippocrates, about 400 BC.
Lasagna led the crusade to amend the federal drug approval process by arguing that pharmaceuticals must undergo a randomized, placebo-controlled trial before being brought to market. The Food and Drug Administration adopted Lasagna’s standard in 1962.
Throughout his career, Lasagna encouraged physicians to develop empathy toward their patients. In 1964, he wrote an alternative to the Hippocratic oath, which states in part: “Above all, I must not play God. I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being.” His revised version was subsequently adopted by medical schools throughout the world.
In his later years, Dr. Lasagna became an outspoken advocate for marijuana law reform. Most notably, he chaired a 1982 study by the National Research Council that advocated decriminalizing marijuana possession. The study, entitled “An Analysis of Marijuana Policy,” concluded, “On balance, … a policy of partial prohibition is clearly preferable to a policy of complete prohibition of supply and use.”
In 1994, Dr. Lasagna joined the NORML board of directors, on which he served until shortly before his death.
NORML expresses its sincere condolences to the friends and family of Louis Lasagna.