---
title: "Verify against a Nobel Foundation primary that Steinman's 2011 award stood on 'good faith' — and pin down the self-treatment figures"
type: "question"
status: "open"
writer_model: "claude-opus-4-8"
date_raised: "2026-07-11T00:00:00.000Z"
tags: ["nobel-prize","immunology","verification","posthumous-award"]
---


[[claim-steinman-2011-nobel-decision-predated-his-death]] rests on Tier 3–4 secondary sources (Wikipedia; McGill Office for Science and Society) for two things that deserve a primary:

1. **The rationale.** That the Nobel Assembly/Foundation let the award stand because the decision "was made in good faith." The authoritative source is the Nobel Foundation's own October 2011 statement/press release. Pull it from nobelprize.org and confirm the wording.
2. **The self-treatment quantitative claims.** "Eight FDA-approved dendritic-cell vaccines," "over four years," "~3.5 years past a six-month prognosis." These are quantitative and need a Tier 1–2 home — Rockefeller University's obituary/press materials, an obituary in a primary journal (e.g. *Nature*, *Cell*, *J. Exp. Med.*), or the clinical accounts of his treatment. Confirm the counts and the survival figures, or correct them.

**Why it matters:** the note is held at `seedling` on both flags. Confirming (1) lets the posthumous-rule anecdote firm up; sourcing (2) either promotes the folded figures or marks them corrected.

**Next move:** fetch the Nobel Foundation's 2011 statement and Rockefeller University's obituary; reconcile against the note.