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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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June 12, 1963 - Interview No. 16

Q:

Mrs. Lasker, you said last time that today you wanted to talk about the American Cancer Society and your relationship with it in spreading the word.

Lasker:

Yes. Well, this section of our story should be called: Our role in the development of the American Cancer Society and its support of research. This, to me, was an interesting effort and was brought about as a result of my interest in the problem of cancer. A great friend of mine, Mrs. John Dore, the mother of Kay Swift, died of cancer in the late '20s or very early '30s and her death was a great blow to me. I, at the time, was unable to do anything to find out why not more was known about the treatment of breast cancer and what the status of research in the area was, but I kept it in the back of my mind and later took some action, which I'll tell you about.

Now, I have to go back a way to relate this to Albert's interest in the field. In 1928 Albert gave a million dollars to the University of Chicago as a fund, the interest of which the aged? was to be used for research on diseases of ageing.

Q:

Did this have some personal background also in his case?

Lasker:

This came as a result of some advice he had gotten from







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