Howard Maibach

Howard I. Maibach is an American dermatologist and professor of dermatology at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). His major contributions include seminal work in wound management, and he has done extensive work in patient care, dermatophysiology, dermatophamacology, and dermatotoxicology. In 2013, he was awarded the Master Dermatologist Award by the American Academy of Dermatology for outstanding contributions to the practice and teaching of dermatology.

Biography

Maibach was born on 18 July 1929, in New York City. He graduated from Tulane University School of Medicine in 1955, He is also known for his work in neonatal skin, dose response of topical drugs and per-cutaneous penetration. The UCSF Dermatology Department website lists 1,500 medical journal articles by Dr. Maibach published from 1960 to 2025.

Research ethics In December 2022, UCSF released the results of a preliminary investigation into his research conducted on prisoners at the California Medical Facility. The report raised ethical concerns over how the research was conducted, especially with regards to getting informed consent from and communicating research risks to participants, and the fact that many of the prisoners were being assessed or treated for psychiatric conditions. The report noted that the experiments did not involve treating medical conditions the patients had, and in some cases involved exposing patients to herbicides and insecticides. In his response to the report, Maibach expressed remorse regarding his involvement in the research, saying, "[While] the work I did with colleagues at CMF was considered by many to be appropriate by the standards of the day, [in retrospect] those standards were clearly evolving. I obviously would not work under those circumstances today... I have sincere remorse in relationship to these efforts some decades ago."

In 2023, Maibach filed a lawsuit against the University of California, titled Maibach v. Regents of the University of California. The litigation followed the university's 2022 public apology.

Honors Maibach was awarded an honorary PhD by Universite de Paris-Sud in 1985 and by Université Claude Bernard in 2008.

Publications