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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Part:         Session:         Page of 1143

Q:

It's an interesting gimmick.

Lasker:

And then to try to get newspapers and magazines to use the ad. I think I'll have to pay for some to begin with as a contribution, but actually there are about 300,000 people now dying of cancer a year and most people that are connected with anyone that dies of cancer, if they think of it, would be glad to put money in their wills and people that know they have cancer would be glad to put money in their wills.

Q:

That's the big “if,” if they think about it.

Lasker:

That's why you need to have it promoted, but the American Cancer Society only raises all told around $40 million now, and that $40 million isn't a great deal of money in a country where the gross national product is over $660 million, isn't it? That's not a tremendous amount of money for people like us to raise for the second cause of death, and the American Heart Association raises around $28 or $30 million all told. Most of this money doesn't go to research. About $12 to $14 million goes to research in the Cancer Society and not that much from the Heart Association. So dynamic action I wouldn't say is still being taken, but I just can't engineer it any further. It's easier to get federal money and to get federal action.





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