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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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do the same thing. It's an area where there seems to be a block in the thinking of many doctors and the NIH has not the adequate funds to open up this deficit.

At the time of Albert's death I gave Rhoad a $70,000 personally with which to supplement stipends of various research fellows in order that he might form a team of clinical research men at Ewing Hospital, a city hospital associated with Memorial, who could take care of clinical trials of new clinical compounds. I also gave additional funds for the Albert Lasker Fellowships and purchase of compounds in 1954. The new drug 6-mercaptopurine was tested by this group and is at present one of the best drugs for leukemia and gives a few months of additional prolonged life to its victims. This drug gave hope to people that something could be done about leukemia, and now there are various other drugs that can be used in sequence to prolong life of leukemia victims. The lives of adults with leukemia can be prolonged many years, and in acute leukemia instead of the average length of life in children being about three months after the onset of the disease is now on the average of 14 months with some children alive after six years. Now, this you may say is of very little comfort but it's what has been done.

Unfortunately, there's no cure for leukemia as yet, but there are actually cures for three other types of rare types of cancer with chemical compounds. I think I've described that.

In 1954 this program at Memorial Hospital was the most





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