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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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introduced by people who evidently heard of the success of the Heart Institute and the Cancer Institute and the Mental Health Institute and they wanted to see something done about these other areas. We had had nothing to do with them.

The Senate was in a quandry about what to do with all these bills. The Public Health Service was also in a quandry. Dr. Norman Topping, who was then the Deputy Surgeon General, I think, and who is now the President of the University of Southern California, was opposed to additional health institutes. For what reason, I don't know, except that he said that the administration of them was too complicated. Personally, I thought that the complications of adminstration were not half as complicated as the sufferings of the people who had the diseases, but the Public Health Service was not terribly motivated by the anxieties about human sufferings; they just didn't want to have too much trouble, I fear.

Q:

What committee did these bills get referred to? Health and Education in the Senate?

Lasker:

They got referred to Murray's committee; it was Labor and Public Welfare, I think. As Murray was a friend of ours we thought there would be no trouble about the reporting of the bill, which indeed there wasn't. Pepper was the chairman of the subcommittee and he heard the bills first. Arthritis at the time was estimated to afflict between seven and a half million and





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