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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Part:         Session:         Page of 1143

the payoffs are in human beings, as of this moment, unfortunately.

Q:

Wouldn't it be a feasible thing to have some sort of coordination between all these efforts in this area?

Lasker:

Well, they're informally in touch with each other, and the Veterans Administration has a representative on all the councils of the National Institutes of Health, but there's no real dynamic interchange of efforts, I couldn't say, on many fronts. Maybe there are. The only exception I know of that is in the cancer field under Dr. Lyndon Lee. The National Cancer Institute gives the Veterans Administration funds of about half a million dollars with which to test new drugs on different forms of cancer in Veterans Hospitals cancer patients. But the Veterans Administration is a monolithic organization that is very much all in a world of its own, and any of the lines that get crossed get crossed informally, usually.

Q:

It would be an idea though, wouldn't it?

Lasker:

It would be, certainly; it would be superb. And if the personalities of the leaders were different, it would be done and could be done.

Q:

Probably under the aegis of the Cabinet officer.

Lasker:

Well, no Secretary of HEW has really been interested in medical research, really interested in medical research, or known





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