BEIRUT–In response to the Nobel Committee’s decision to award the Nobel Prize for Medicine this year to Paul Lauterbur and Peter Mansfield–for the invention of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI)–the Armenian Medical Association of Lebanon forwarded a letter of complaint to the Nobel Committee–expressing their amazement that the distinguished body could make such a grave error. "It is a known fact throughout the world that the inventor and creator of magnetic resonance imaging is–in fact–Raymond Damadian."
The Association also demanded that the Nobel Committee correct the serious error in order to uphold the prestige and influence of the Nobel Prize.
Though Damadian owns the patent on magnetic resonance imaging machines–the Nobel Committee at Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm–which picks the medicine winner–said it was convinced the award was correct–and that a Nobel Prize cannot be appealed.
Damadian discovered in 1970 that differences between cancerous tissue and normal tissue could be seen using nuclear magnetic resonance–a precursor to MRI technology. His company Fonar–makes and designs MRI scanners.
