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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Part:         Session:         Page of 1143

Lasker:

Well, it wasn't inconclusive. There was no doubt that people suffered enormous stress, but there weren't enough people in the study--there were maybe only 10 or 15 people in the study--to show a precise emotional pattern that is as clear as the number of people who have been studied to show the emotional factors in lcer, for isntance. There are many more people studied in connection with ulcers, and even with hypertension or asthma. And, you know, medical doctors aren't intersted in this idea at all.

Q:

Why?

Lasker:

Well, they just don't think you can get down to anything precise and by the time people have cancer, they think the only thing to do is surgery or some form of drug therapy. Very few doctors are very interested in psychiatry anyway.

As you know, mental illness is one of the causes of disability in the United States and at least one out of every 10 persons will need psychiatric care sometime during his life, an appalling thought. More than half the hospital beds in the United States are occupied by mental patients, even though the number of beds have declined since the coming of the new drugs in the middle '50s. Innumerable people are under deep distress who never see a psychiatrist or even have a friend to whom to tell the whole of their problems.

Q:

Mrs. Lasker, may I interrupt? It seems to me that that is an area that must be of vast interest to you and one where you





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