Nobel Peace Prize recipient and ACSH Trustee Dr. Norman Borlaug, age ninety-two, will receive a new honor because of today's House of Representatives vote to award him a Congressional Gold Medal, the U.S.'s highest civilian honor. An agricultural scientist, Borlaug fostered innovative crop-yield-increasing techniques that sparked the so-called "green revolution" in agriculture in the 1960s. "Dr. Borlaug is responsible for saving a billion lives around the world," said Rep. Tom Latham (R-IA), who pushed the bill in the House after the earlier passage of the corresponding Senate bill. 
A native of Iowa, Borlaug has since traveled the world bringing improved maize and wheat production methods to impoverished areas from Mexico to Pakistan to Africa. In addition to his more official honors, he's been praised as "the greatest man who ever lived" by TV's Penn and Teller (who pointedly chose him over various better-known political and religious figures) and been lauded by the (fictional) President on West Wing.
Borlaug continues to globetrot, working for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center and the Sasakawa Global 2000 program in Africa. He visited Dr. Elizabeth Whelan (see photo) and the rest of us at the ACSH offices just a few months ago to share his concerns about the problem of "wheat rust," a fungus with the potential to wipe out a huge portion of the world's wheat crop. Borlaug hopes that biotech will provide humanity with the tools to combat that all-natural threat -- one more reminder that he fights for scientific progress with concrete benefits, opposing fashionable attempts to restrict humanity to the inefficient, low-tech "sustainable" methods of ages past.
ACSH is proud to be associated with Borlaug and happy to aid in some small way in his larger mission of promoting science -- and keeping people alive and healthy as result. It's nice to see him getting a bit more of the recognition he richly deserves.
Todd Seavey is Director of Publications at the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH.org) and editor of HealthFactsAndFears.com.
