Home
Search transcripts:    Advanced Search
Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Mary LaskerMary Lasker
Photo Gallery
Transcript

Part:         Session:         Page of 999

Lasker:

It's really not modesty, it's just a way of doing it. I am perfectly aware of what I try to do, and what I have been successful at. It would annoy the hell out of most people because they'd say anybody that had been able to get that much done had too much power. You know power is fragile, and the minute somebody catches on to the fact that you have power they want to destroy it, literally, unless it's something that they can't destroy, you know. Either they can destroy your credibility or they can destroy you in some way.

And so they want to annihilate it, and what's more, if you have used people as sort of a front for things -- for your ideas -- they deserve the publicity, and they deserve the credit, because you couldn't have gotten it done any other way. I could not have. So that's the way it is.

Q:

I am delighted to have that bit. Now are you going to turn your attention to talking about interferon, certain aspects of it? I thought perhaps... (interruption in recording)

Q:

Let's turn our attention to talk about interferon. Tell me if anything has developed at the City of Hope in Los Angeles.

Lasker:

Yes. The City of Hope in the last two years has cloned somatastatin, growth hormone, and insulin, which





© 2006 Columbia University Libraries | Oral History Research Office | Rights and Permissions | Help