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Mary LaskerMary Lasker
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to move, based on economics.

Q:

I think it's only right to ask you about your personal reactions to this whole accomplishment. So much of you has gone into this effort through the years.

Lasker:

I'll tell what you my reaction will be, that it's just one part of a big long road which we haven't come to the end of at all and which we're just sort of beginning probably a new era, because of the opening up of the knowledge of viruses in relation to human cancer, and the usefulness of drugs in human cancer. There are now seven or eight types of human cancer that can be cured, five year cures for human cancers with different drugs. We're just at the beginning of a new era. But how long it will take to eliminate cancer as a threat to human life, I don't know. Of course it's still a great big struggle.

Q:

Haven't you felt a bit of elation over this? As a giant step?

Lasker:

Well, I'll tell you, because we didn't get it done just right, I was very anxious about it, but I think the White House finally has faced the fact that the NIH management is not in favor of doing anything especially dynamic. They're alerted to this. Now, what happens if Nixon's defeated and we get a Democrat in, God knows, because you can have a lot of trouble explaining this to another President, another set of staff and people. But I think they finally came to the conclusion that these people were not doing their maximum to get any answers, and they became wary of them as people who were going to do something about a major disease in any expeditious way. So this is a help. But





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