Fredrickson receiving an honorary degree from the University of Michigan

Left to right: Joseph Califano, Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare; Robin Flemming, President of the University of Michigan; Fredrickson.

The back of the photograph reads:

Dr. Fredrickson honored the University of Michigan in 1946 by accepting our Bachelor of Science degree. Three years later he honored us again by accepting our degree, Doctor of Medicine. Subsequently, he has risen to the directorship of the National Institutes of Health at Bethesda, Maryland, serving, fortunately for America, under two successive political administrations.

In this age of speculation Dr. Fredrickson has achieved distinction in such diverse fields as cardiology, molecular disease, nutrition, metabolism, preventative medicine, and medical education. Our individual lives have been prolonged through his research on plasma lipoproteins, which has led to the identification and consequent prevention of several new diseases.

Throughout his leadership in the nation's capital during the controversy on federal funding of recombinant DNA research, he has kept his talented fingers on the pulse of scientific truth as well as of public morality, by insisting upon uncompromisingly high priorities for biomedical investigation and assuring that this sensitive and daring probe into life-study not transgress boundaries of human concern. "Donald Sharp Fredrickson, therefore, today gives the University of Michigan its third opportunity to honor itself by honoring him, with the degree Doctor of Science."