>>>In 1978, having found a better rubella vaccine than his own, Dr. Hilleman asked its developer if he could use it in the M.M.R. The developer, Dr. Stanley Plo

>>>In 1978, having found a better rubella vaccine than his own, Dr. Hilleman asked its developer if he could use it in the M.M.R. The developer, Dr. Stanley Plotkin, then of the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, was momentarily speechless. It was an expensive choice for Merck, and might have been a painful one for anyone other than Dr. Hilleman. >>>“It’s not that he didn’t have an ego. He certainly did,” Dr. Plotkin recalled in a recent interview. “But he valued excellence above that. Once he decided that this strain was better, he did what he had to do,” even if it meant sacrificing his own work. That is how the hell things used to work, not driven by damn accountants and MBAs and people who want to CYA or get all the credit.