Part: 12         Session: 145678910111213141516171819202122         Page 466467468469470471472473474475476477478479480481482483484485486487488489490491492493494495496497498499 of 999

except for the interest that we got from Richardson, who did allocate two million dollars to it, to do some medical education of doctors and to do the beginning of some efforts on public information, this hasn't really been sparked by anybody but just a small group of us. It shows that you can't leave everything to bureaucracies. Citizens have to be constantly in communication with their government, or a lot of very vital things get very short or no notice.

This is not new to you.

This is not new to me, but it seems to me that this high blood pressure thing is so singularly strange, because it's been known for at least 15 years that there were drugs that would lower blood pressure, and -- but it was really Dr. Freis's article from the Veterans' Administration four years ago which showed that even people with moderate blood pressure should be treated, and that there was a saving of lives even if people had slight elevations of blood pressure, if they were treated, and that seemed to do away with all opposition on the part of doctors, to treating people. I don't say that they -- they don't treat people easily and many people are not treated or screened at all, by millions in fact, but the opposition on the part of doctors has diminished to a great degree. They for a long time didn't want to treat anyone their blood pressure was 220 over 140 or something like that, you know -- something was ready to burst.

Well, your small group of active citizens has done remarkable work.