‘We have just witnessed what doctoring is about. When faced with a dire emergency of sudden cardiac arrest, doctors do not inquire whether the patient was a good person or a criminal. We do not delay treatment to learn the politics or character of the victim. We respond not as ideologues, nor as Russians nor Americans, but as doctors.

1. doi:10.1093/eurheartj/ehz469
Drama at the Nobel Peace Prize Press
Conference
The award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the IPPNW with Evgeny Chazov and
Bernard Lown was not without controversy and drama
That was publicly aired at a press conference on 9 December 1985, in
Oslo, where the laureates were quizzed by the world’s media; facing
questions about human rights in the Soviet Union and dissident Soviet
physicist Andrei Sakharov, who won the 1975 Nobel Peace Prize,
rather than on the work of IPPNW. The room was described as ‘stuffy’
with a ‘tense’ atmosphere, and soon there was medical drama with the
two Nobel Prize recipients at the heart of it as a Soviet television cam-
eraman collapsed with a cardiac arrest.
An account of the event, published in ‘IPPNW Report’ Vol. 4, No. 1,
February 1986, reflected the ensuing activity: ‘Suddenly a journalist
slumps over in his chair and begins convulsing – the victim of sudden
cardiac arrest’. A team of IPPNW physicians rushed to his aid as the
press conference dissolved into a battle for the life of Lev Novikov. A
photograph captures the moment with Dr Chazov performing exter-
nal chest compressions and Dr Lown looking on.
It was feared that the efforts to save him had failed but later, word
comes from Oslo’s Rikshospitalet that Novikov is alive but in critical
condition. . .and he eventually recovers, the report adds.
When the press conference resumed (picture 2) Lown had this to
say: ‘We have just witnessed what doctoring is about. When faced
with a dire emergency of sudden cardiac arrest, doctors do not inquire
whether the patient was a good person or a criminal. We do not delay
treatment to learn the politics or character of the victim. We respond
not as ideologues, nor as Russians nor Americans, but as doctors.
The only thing that matters is saving a human life. We work with col-
leagues, whatever their political persuasion, whether capitalist or
Communist. This very culture permeates IPPNW. The world is threat-
ened with sudden nuclear death. We work with doctors whatever
their political convictions to save our endangered home. You have just
witnessed IPPNW in action’.
In his report for the Washington Post, William Drozdiak wrote how
the IPPNW executive had faced ‘hostile’ questioning about the award
and then, as the drama unfolded, observed: ‘Lown and Chazov jumped
from the podium, peeled off their jackets and took turns trying to
revive the patient’s heart by pressing his chest, all the while shouting in
Russian and English for drugs and equipment’. Drozdiak reported that
Noviak was in a ‘stable but critical’ condition and that a hospital
spokesman said the ‘quick action by this year’s award winners appears
to have saved his life’.
The Washington Post also noted it was a common interest in sud-
den death by cardiac arrest—the leading killer in the Soviet Union and
the United States at the time—that brought Lown and Chazov
together in the first place.
Conflict of interest: none declared.
Mark Nicholls
mark.nicholls@mnmedia.co.uk
2280 CardioPulse
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