The French physician and biochemist Étienne-Émile Baulieu (Étienne Blum, born 1926) made major contributions to the knowledge of steroid hormones and developed RU 486, the first safe, effective contragestive medication (abortion pill).

Étienne-Émile Baulieu was born in Strasbourg, France, on December 12, 1926. His father, Léon Blum, homonym of the French prime minister, died when he was three and a half years old. He had been a renowned professor of medicine. Born in Alsace when that province was occupied by Germany, he had studied in Berlin and specialized in nephrology. Drafted into the German army, he was decorated with the Iron Cross. But at heart, as an Alsatian, he was truly French and passed on military intelligence to the French through his first wife's parents, who lived in Switzerland. When he was discovered, he joined the French army in Verdun in 1916. Marshal P...