Dr. Frederick ‘Fred’ Wirth, physician for America’s 1st test-tube baby, dies at 68
By APFriday, October 9, 2009
Doctor who cared for 1st US test-tube baby dies
RENO, Nev. — Dr. Frederick “Fred” Wirth, the physician to America’s first test-tube baby, has died.
His wife, Linda, says the 68-year-old Wirth died Monday of pancreatic cancer.
Wirth was the neonatologist who cared for Elizabeth Jordan Carr after her birth on Dec. 28, 1981.
Carr, now a 27-year-old news content producer for the Boston Globe’s Web site Boston.com, says Wirth determined how the public perceived the nation’s first test-tube baby.
Wirth pronounced her healthy and normal at the first news conference, which the nation watched eagerly at a time when such medical technology was new and scary.
Wirth met Carr for the first time in 2003 in Boston, where the two discussed a letter he wrote to her the day she was born.
