WASHINGTON -- Few epidemiologists are as publicly lauded as Don Francis. The longtime public health worker has toiled on multiple continents in efforts to eradicate some of the world's deadliest diseases, from smallpox in South Asia to cholera in Nigeria to hepatitis B in the United States and China. Most famously, Francis worked to track and identify AIDS in the 1980s as an official with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The 1993 movie "And The Band Played On" chronicled that chapter of his life, with actor Matthew Modine playing Francis in one of the film’s leading roles. But before all of that, Francis was a member of the World Health Organization team that was dispatched to...
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