Medicine: Strepto-Settlement

The researchers who worked together for seven years to discover the wonder-drug streptomycin, and then had a falling-out last year (TIME, March 20), finally patched up their difference in a New Jersey court. With the approval of Judge E. Thomas Schettino, Rutgers University’s famed Microbiologist Selman Abraham Waksman, who has earned close to $400,000 in royalties from the drug, last week acknowledged that his former laboratory assistant Albert Schatz is “entitled to credit legally and scientifically as co-discoverer of streptomycin.” Earnest young (30) Dr. Schatz in turn retracted his charge that Waksman had practiced “fraud and duress” in depriving him of a share in its profits.

Under last week’s settlement, Dr. Waksman’s original 20% of the earnings on the drug will hereafter be divided between himself (10%), Dr. Schatz (3%) and 14 other collaborating scientists. Dr. Schatz will receive a flat $125,000 for his share in the foreign sales. Special bonuses will be handed out to a group of twelve helpful laboratory workers, including the widow of a lab dishwasher who died last year. The Rutgers Research and Endowment Foundation, which had largely financed the work, and controls the patents, will continue to collect the lion’s share—about $500,000 a year.