Yesterday the party atmosphere for what was to be a week of celebrations at the Nobel Foundation was converted into a confused round of frantic phone calls and emergency meetings when it became known that the medicine prize winner Ralph Steinman had died last Friday. The media have been full of stories about the embarrassment this has caused and the chaos that ensued. Nevertheless the Foundation came to the decision – fairly quickly and quite rightly in my opinion – that Steinman would retain the award.
But it does create a minor quandary for the Nobel Awards Committee. In future they will have to check that their award winners are alive at the time of making their decisions, but they will still have to maintain secrecy about the identity of the winners. Indirect checking through 3rd parties could probably lead to some identity leaks.
But I think this is a storm in a Nobel tea-cup. The solution is fairly simple as probability comes to their aid. Such occurrences as Ralph Steinman’s death some hours before the decision was finally taken are likely to be extremely rare. And they handled the unprecedented situation swiftly and quite well. Moreover the Nobel Foundation could quite easily and simply clarify their award rules to be “that individuals known to have died before the decision shall not be considered”. The critical time is, I think, when the decision is made and not the time of the award announcement.
The Physics prize will be announced today.
In the Press:
Svenska Dagbladet – Reactions after Nobel prize blunder
Telegraph – Nobel jury left red faced by death of laureate
Herald Sun – Nobel jury caught off guard by death of laureate
The k2p blog 