This letter to her friend and political associate Florence Mahoney reflected the beginnings of Mary Lasker's Congressional lobbying for federal sponsorship of medical research, which until World War II had been insignificant. The budget of the National Institute of Health (then still singular), successor to the U.S. Public Health Service's Hygienic Laboratory, did not exceed $700,000 on the eve of the war, compared to $4.7 million provided by private foundations for medical research. Government research focused on agriculture, including animal diseases, but not human health. Lasker convinced Florida Senator Claude Pepper to hold hearings in the summer of 1945 on the need for greatly increased federal funds for medical research, which Lasker referred to in her letter. The hearings, which featured expert "citizen witnesses" and health data, all provided by Lasker, set a pattern for her style of lobbying over the next two decades.
Number of Image Pages:
1 (110,749 Bytes)
Date:
1945-07-23 (July 23, 1945)
Creator:
[Lasker, Mary]
Recipient:
Mahoney, Florence
Source:
Original Repository: Columbia University. Rare Book and Manuscript Library. Mary Lasker Papers
Rights:
Reproduced with permission of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation.
