Nobel Peace Prize winner Bernard Lown dies at 99

By Beyza Binnur Donmez

ANKARA (AA) - Dr. Bernard Lown, an American cardiologist who won a Nobel Peace Prize for his anti-nuclear war efforts, has died from heart failure. He was 99.

Lown's health had been declining from congestive heart failure, The Boston Globe reported. He lost his life Tuesday at his home in Boston, Massachusetts.

The Lithuanian doctor is known for inventing the first reliable heart defibrillator and being a co-founder of an anti-nuclear war group.

He was a professor at Harvard University and a physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston.

He was among the first doctors to emphasize the importance of diet and exercise in treating heart disease and introduced the drug Lidocaine as a treatment for arrhythmia, according to the US daily.

Lown invented the direct-current defibrillator that restores heartbeat with electric shocks in 1961, and it was used for the first time in 1962.

The outspoken social activist was one of the founding fathers of Physicians for Social Responsibility -- a physician-led organization in the US working to protect the public from the threats of nuclear proliferation. In 1980, he co-founded International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War as his stand against nuclear war grew into an international movement.

The international anti-war group was awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for raising awareness about the consequences of nuclear war.