It’s fitting that a bequest from the late Robert Remis, BSc’67, MDCM’72, whose scientific findings and public health initiatives prevented countless cases of mother-to-child HIV transmission around the world, is helping new researchers conduct important epidemiological work and contributing to a McGill school active in global efforts to end the current pandemic.
The Dr. Robert S. Remis Fellowship in Epidemiology provides $20,000 a year to a graduate student pursuing infectious disease epidemiology. Remis fellow Lena Faust investigates the effects of air pollution on tuberculosis outcomes in India. She’s inspired by Remis’ dedication to infectious disease prevention and how he advanced our understanding of HIV epidemiology. “It’s examples like this that motivate aspiring researchers like us to investigate, learn and advocate for evidence-based change,” says Faust.
Dr. Timothy Evans, inaugural Director and Associate Dean of McGill’s new School of Population and Global Health (SPGH), has also been inspired by the example set by Remis, of “science in the service of humanity.” To him, the current need for this type of public health initiative is evident: “In these pandemic times, the imperative for more and better scientific leadership in global infectious diseases and public health has never been greater,” says Evans, who is also executive director of Canada’s COVID-19 Immunity Task Force.
Robert Remis made great strides with another mysterious new disease, AIDS, which was decimating the gay community in the ’80s and early ’90s. But his public health work began in earnest with food-borne illness. Having graduated with a master’s in public health from Harvard, he worked out of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and helped crack a 1982 outbreak of hemorrhagic colitis linked to McDonald's restaurants. It would end up being the first discovered outbreak of E. coli 0157:H7. Remis helped prove that the frozen hamburger patties were not reaching a high enough temperature when cooked.
Remis’ son Samuel Lapalme-Remis, BA’99, MDCM’10, now a neurologist, was five at the time and received his first acknowledgement in a medical journal. Written in the Annals of Internal Medicine paper published from the investigation was a thank-you to “Samuel Lapalme-Remis, for patience,” a nod to the boy being dragged around to various sites while visiting with him in Michigan as his father tried to get to the bottom of the outbreak.
Once AIDS emerged as an important new infectious disease, Remis focussed his efforts on understanding the disease and preventing its spread. But this was a time when the LGBTQ+ and other communities at risk felt stigmatized. “He was a scientist. He felt that you're not doing people any favours by hiding the reality,” says Lapalme-Remis, who remembers that his father’s claim that there were could be a risk of HIV transmission with unprotected oral sex and calling for criminal charges for some who knowingly spread the infection brought personal criticism, which did bother him. “It was a struggle for him because he saw himself as a progressive person and certainly wasn't coming from a place of discrimination.”
His work on AIDS spanned a career trajectory that took him from the CDC, then to Montreal, where he worked in the regional infectious disease office and was present as the public health infrastructure was transformed from a collection of makeshift office apartments with a few computers into a well-funded government agency, and then on to the University of Toronto, where he established and directed the Ontario HIV Epidemiologic Monitoring Unit. Out of that work, he designed numerous groundbreaking studies and successfully advocated for prenatal HIV testing in Ontario. His research led to numerous international collaborations, with him travelling frequently to developing countries such as Burundi, Mali, Thailand and India to work with public health officials on lowering their domestic HIV infection rates.
While Remis spent 17 years in Toronto, Montreal played a seminal role in his life and career. Born and raised in Winnipeg, the successful science student was studying physics and math at the University of Manitoba but was feeling underwhelmed. It was the ’60s and Montreal, as a cultural and science hub, beckoned. His parents told him that he had everything he needed in Winnipeg and, despite being in the position to pay for it, they were not going to contribute to him studying in Montreal.
He left anyway and, for the next seven years he paid for his studies by working, sharing cramped quarters, not eating very well, and receiving a small stipend from his grandmother. At one point, he couldn’t afford to tow an old car his grandmother gave him when it broke down on the road; on another occasion, he was arrested for unpaid parking tickets, the same day the police stopped him for unwittingly passing on a counterfeit five-dollar bill. But he persevered and thrived in his medical studies at McGill.
“Despite the struggle, he would never have traded that for anything,” says Lapalme-Remis. “McGill symbolized for him independent exploration and scientific curiosity.”
Remis died from cancer in 2014 and was heralded around the world for his epidemiological work. McGill is fortunate to have played a role in shaping that career and to benefit from the gift he leaves behind.