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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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Part:         Session:         Page of 999

Q:

You still will never give public testimony?

Lasker:

No, I don't want to give public testimony because the trouble is that you're taking the clothes off of the boys and they -- you never know how -- you can also destroy the thing that I've built up.

Q:

I know, it's very tactful, a tactful position certainly.

Lasker:

Because people say, “Well, if they've done this little, why should we give them anything?” You know -- to help people. Whereas actually the truth is that many pieces of information in basic science will finally be used --

Q:

-- will bear fruit certainly --

Lasker:

Yes, but that much more could have borne fruit if there had been determination to do it. That's what I said.

Q:

The fact that the Senate had passed the Senate bill so overwhelmingly, didn't this make an impact on the House?

Lasker:

No, in the House they hate Senators. No, the Senate can't get their bills passed unless the House agrees. So on the 14th of September Rogers sent me over a bill and said, “I wish you'd read this bill because this is my bill and I think that you'll like this bill.”

So I read the bill and the bill contained nothing that was useful that gave any guts to the Senate bill, but he did have 20 million dollars in it for control grants which had been eliminated by the NIH.





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