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Source: The New York World Telegram and Sun: April 28, 1950
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Finder of Streptomycin Got $350,000 as Share

 

Special to World-Telegram and Sun.

TRENTON, April 28.-Dr. Selman A. Waksman, renowned scientist, collected $350,000 in royalties for his part in discovering the wonder drug streptomycin, his attorney, Russell E. Watson, admitted today.

The disclosure came after Dr. Albert Schatz, assistant bacteriology professor at Brooklyn College, charged Dr. Waksman with misleading the public into that all royalties had been turned over to a Rutgers University research foundation.

Dr. Schatz, of 210 Riverdale Ave., Bklyn., is suing for a share of the royalties. He contends he co-discovered the drug while graduate student at Rutgers but was induced to surrender his financial rights through fraud and coercion.

Mr. Watson told Superior Court Judge Wilfred H. Jayne that the $350,000 represented 10 per cent of the royalties paid by drug manufacturers. He said the scientist actually kept only $140,000, paying $180,000 in income tax and making research grants of $30,000.

Dr. Schatz charges that Dr. Waksman told him to sign over his rights to the university foundation or he would see to it that the graduate student never got a job in his chosen field.

Dr. Waksman says the Brooklyn man was merely one of a number of students who worked on the drug, and that Dr. Schatz only participated in the closing phases. The streptomycin patent, however, lists Dr. Schatz as co-discoverer.