Hans Cohen


Hans Herman Cohen was a Dutch microbiologist. He was director-general of the Netherlands National Institute for Public Health and the Environment between 1984 and 1986. As a microbiologist Cohen worked on development of polio vaccines in the Netherlands.

Career

Cohen was born in Groningen on 3 February 1923. In 1954 he started working for the Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid, a predecessor of the RIVM. His initial wish was to start working on a polio vaccine but he was rebuffed as there was not yet a government vaccination order. However, during the 1950s and 1960s he worked on the development of the Salk polio vaccine. In the 1970s Cohen together with Jonas Salk and Charles Mérieux founded the Forum for the Advancement of Immunization Research.
During his time as director-general of the Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid he oversaw the merger with two other institutes per 1984, which resulted in the formation of the RIVM. Per 1 January 1984 he was appointed director-general of the RIVM. His term ended in 1986. The Dutch Council of Ministers subsequently nominated him as head of the.
In 1992, after a minor polio outbreak in the Netherlands, he protested against the offer of a free polio vaccine to around nine million persons not in risk groups, calling it a "waste of money".
Cohen was elected a member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1980. In 1986 he was named Commander in the Order of Orange-Nassau.
Cohen died on 14 May 2020 in Bosch en Duin, aged 97.