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started the Arthritis and Rheumatism Foundation with some initial seed money from Albert and me and from himself, and who explained to the doctors in the arthritis field that the bill proposing such an institute was not socialized medicine, which the AMA was trying to tell them it was, and urged them to support it.
As a result, Drs. Freiberg, Traeger and many others testified in favor of the bill before the House and Senate subcommittees and Dr. Dan Gordon was especially helpful in testifying for the needs of research in blinding eye diseases. Traeger was very important, and with Leonard Goldenson, the President of Paramount Theaters and now of the American Broadcasting Company, with his group in cerebral palsy, in pointing out the needs for research in both multiple sclerosis and cerebral palsy.
Russell Wilder of the Mayo Clinic became the first Director of the Institute for Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, and Pierce Bailey was the first Director of the National Institute for Neurological Diseases and Blindness.
In 1950, this same year, another project I had at heart, that is the Child Research Institute bill, which I discussed with Dr. Martha Elliott and several groups that Mrs. David Levy was connected with and were willing to support, was introduced by Senator Douglas of Illinois. For some reason, Monseignor O'Grady, the legislative representative of the Catholic groups in Washington, opposed any bill pertaining to research in child health. I fear that he felt it might turn out that something would be found out about improved contraceptives or that something might happen in the
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