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I didn't consider it a madness at all. I thought it was a madness to have--in that year we had a total of a million seven hundred and twelve thousand for cancer research, up from 546 thousand the year before, and I thought it was high time we got to treating the second cause of death with some seriousness.
Was your point of view supported by any medical authorities?
Well, the doctors were taking it. This is very surprising to most doctors.
However, the hearings were held in June of ‘46 in the Senate, Pepper held them, and Albert, Mr. James Adams and Dr. C.P. Rhoads of Memorial did go and testify. It was decided, however, that another bill should be drawn to replace the general statement in the Neely-Pepper bill, Albert and other members of the Cancer Society were determined that the bill should be independent of the Public Health Service at that moment, because the Public Health Service had taken so little interest in being energetic about medical research at that time. They had showed so little interest over the last ten years in getting any substantial funds or getting any large effort going.
The National Cancer Institute Bill had passed in 1937 and between 1937 and ‘46 the largest amount of money annually that had been asked for was $546,000. In fiscal ‘46--‘47, they asked for $1,712,000 as a result of our maneuvers. No funds had been asked for the education of doctors or for cancer clinics or for
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