Philip Morris
President's Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and Stroke Progress 640615
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stubbornly remain the leading causes of death in the United States.
PROGRESS REPORT
June 15, 1964
PRESIDENT'S COMMSSION ON HEART DISEASE, CANC
In his Health Message to Congress, early in 1964, President
Lyndon B. Johnson indicated that "Cancer, heart disease, and strokes
They now afflict 15 million Americans--txo-thirds of all Americans
now living will ultimately suffer or die from one of them.
through new knowledge and more complete utilization of the medical
I am establishing a Comtnission on Heart Disease, Cancer, and
Strokes to recommend steps to reduce the incidence of these diseases
study by the'end of this year and submit recommendations for action."
prominent in medicine and public affairs.. I expect it to complete its
knowledge we already have. The Commission will be made up of persons
On March 7, the President announced the names of the members of,
this Comnission=as follows:
Dr. Michael DeBakey, Professor and Chairman, Department of
Surgery, Baylor University College of Medicine, Houston, Texas
Members
Chairman
Dr. Samuel Bellet, Professor of Clinical Cardiology, Graduate
School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania
Mr. Barry Bingham; Editor and Publisher, Louisville Courier-
Journal, Louisv3lle, Kentucky
Mr. John M. Carter, Editor, McCall's Magazine, New York, New York
Teacad . _ ~ . , . .
of Texas M. D. Anderson Hospital and Tumor Institute, Houston,
Dr. R. Lee Clark, Director and Surgeon-in-Chief, The University
University, St. Louis, Missouri
Dr. Edward W. Dempsey, Dean, School of Medicine, Washington
Boston, Massachusetts
Research Foundation and ProYessor, Harvard Medical School,
Dr. Sidney Farber, Director of Research, Children's Cancer
_ Medical College of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Dr. Marion S. Fay, Former President and Dean, The Women's
Education, and Welfare
New York, Former Secretary of the U. S. Department of Health,
Mr. Marion B. Folsom, Director, Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester,
New York, New York
Mr. Emerson Foote, Chairman of the Board, McCann-Erickson, Inc
National Red Cross, Washington, D. C.
General Alfred M, Gruenther, Immediate Past President, American
Duke University Medical Center, Durham, North Carolina
Dr. Philip Handler, Professor and Chairman, Biochemistry Depa.rtmentt
Mr. Arthur 0. Hanisch, President, Stuart Company, Pasadena, California
Institute for Cancer Research, New York, New York
Dr. Frank Horsfall, Jr., President and Director, Sloan-Kettering
Dr. J. Willis Hurst, Professor and Chairman, Department of Internal
Medicine, Emory University School of Medicine, Atlanta, Georgia
Dr. Hugh H. Hussey, Director, Division of Scientific Activities, ®
American Medical Association, Chicago, Illinois
Mrs. Florence Mahoney, Co-Chairman, National Committee Against ~
Mental Illness, Washington, D. C.
Dr. Charles W. Mayo, Emeritus Staff Surgeon, Mayo Clinic,
Rochester, Minnesota
Dr. John S. Meyer, Professor and Chairman, Department of Neurology,
Wayne State University College of A~radicina, Detroit, Michigan
Mr: James F. Oates, Chairzran of the Board, Equitable Life
of America, New York, New York
General David Sarnoff, Chairman of the Board, Radio Corporation
Medical Center, New York, New York
Dr.'Paul W. Sanger, Surgeon, Charlotte, North Carolina
Assurance Society, New York, New York
Dr. E. M. Papper, Professor and~ Chairman, Department of
Anesthesiology,-College of Physicians and Surgeons,
Columbia University, New Yorkp New York
. Dr. Howard A. Rusk, Professor and Chairman, Department of
Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, New York University
Dr. Helen B. Taussig, Emeritus "Professor of Pediatrics,
Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland
Mrs. Harry S. Truman, Independ'ence, Missouri -
University Medical College, New.York, New York
Dr. Irving S. Wright, Professor of Clinical Medicine, Cornell
Surgery, New York University Medical School, New York,_New York
Dr. Jane C. Wright; Adjunct Associate Professor of Research
The Commission's Assignm.ent
White
On April 17, 1964, the Conmission held its first meeting in the
House. The President addressed the Commission as follows:
take time for a brisk walk outside this morning. I am a
subscriber to the view once expressed that if you want to
know if your brain is flabby, you better feel your legs.
Ladies and Gentlemen: On beautiful days like this, the
President and school boys have a hard time staying indoors.
I think we would set a good example for the Nation, and we
would advance the cause that brings us together, if we would
.
Health is something that we treasure in this house
where you are gathered this morning, and I know it is
treasured in every houne throughout our land and around
the world. It was said several centuries ago, health is
11
the greatest of all possessions. A pale cobbler is better
than a sick king.
The work that you have begun today is work in which
I have the keenest and the greatest and the most personal
interest. You are here to begin mapping an~attack by this
often fatal. Every two minutes cancer strikes a man or a
a year are struck down in the prime of-life by heart attacks,
knowledge and give us guidelines on overcoming those obstacles.
To this group I do not think I need to tel].. you how vital
this is. Unless we do better, two-thirds of-'all Americans now
living will suffer or die from cancer, heart disease, or stroke.
I expect you to do somothing about it. Five million Americans
for acquiring new knowledge that we already have; third, to
identify the obstacles which stand in the way of advancing
majority of deaths and much of the serious disability which
strikes our people every year.
I have asked you to undertake these three objectives:
First, to measure the full magnitude of the impact of these
diseases upon the Nation; second, to evaluate our resources
heart, cancer, and stroke disease. These three account for the
Nation upon the three great killers, the three great cripplers-
woman or a child in this country. Every year strokes
leave 200,000 Americans dead and another 2 million
incapacitated.
I want us to put our great resources--and they are
unlimited--to work to overcome this. We can, and because
of the work you will do, I believe we will. So let me
say this: I know there are some differing viewpoints
about the prospects for success in these fields, but
from what some of you on this commission have reported
to me, and from some other sources that I believe in,
I think our goals are in sight. It is well within the
range of reasonable expectation that work being done now
in regard to controlling growth of cells in the human body
will bring decisive victories over heart disease and'cancer
. and strokes.
The point is, we must conquer heart disease, we must
conquer cancer, we must conquer strokes. This Nation and
the whole world cries out for this victory. I am firmly
convinced that the acewmulated brains and'determinatioaof
this coa~uission and of the scientific community of the world
will, before the end of this decade, com° forward with some
answers and cures that we need so very much. When this
occurs--not "if," but "when," and I emphasize "when" --we
will face a new challenge and that will be what to do within
our economy to adjust ourselves to a life span and a work
spa.n for the avarage man or woman of 1Q0 years.
Knowing Government as I do, I am sure some President
some day will be appointing a comnission to study tfiat very
graat problcm, and I would be ploaaed to be that Px©aidont.
If you do your work well and if you do your work with
dispatch, maybe I will have that privilege.
I have often been reminded myself of Shakespeare's.line,
"A good heart is worth gold." I am glad mine is good now,
and if the doctors and the Secret Service and my guardians
in the press will just permit me to get my exercise, I
intend to keep it that way.
I want to thank you very much for beginning the work
that I think will ultimately win the hardest fight that we
have ever fought, and I would suspect that just as we look
back on Lincoln's proclamation a hundred years ago, when he
took the chains off the slaves, I would suspect that some day
your grandchildren and great, great grandchildren will be
,looking at this picture made this morning in this beautiful
rose garden, all the thorns are inside, and see the leadership
of 50 States who are willing to give their talents and their
energies and their imaginations, and stay awake atnight and
roll over and go get a glass of water and come back and think
soxe more on how to get the results that we know are within
our reach.
In My Judgwnt, there is nothing that you will ever do
that will keep your name glorified longer, and that will mako
your descendants prouder than this unselfish task that you
have today undertaken to get rid of the causes of heart
and cancer and stroke in this land and around~the world.
What can be more satisfying than to feel that you have
preserved not a life, but millions of them, for decades.
I am here to say to you that while we are interested in the
food stamp plan, we are interested in medicare for the aged
under Social Security, we.are.interested in the civil rights
bill that we consider most essential to our leadership in
this country and in the world, we are interested in the
pay bill that will keep our good civil servants here, we
are interested in the iuunigration'bill that will permit
families to join each other, and we are interested in the
poverty bill that will take our boys out of the pool halls
and out of the slums and out of the juvenile delinquency
centers of the Nation--we are interested in all of those things.
There is nothing that really offers more and greater hbpe
to all humanity and to preserving humanity than the challenge in
the task that you have undertaken. You have among you some of
the great doctors, some of the great public servants of-our
time. Som.ehow, some way, some timse, you are going to find
the answers, and I hope it will be soon.
Thank you.
The Cocunission accepted the assignment, as follows:
We accept the President's challenge with a deep sense of
responsibility and a high dogreQ of enthucicanm. Wo havc been gzvon
an unparalleled opportunity to alleviate suffering and prevent needless
death.
During the past decade and a half, an unprecedented program of
medical research has been instituted on a nationwide scale. Through
cooperative endeavors of public and private organizations--voluntary
health agencies, universities, research institutions, medical scientific
co=uunities, individual philanthropists, and Fed'eral, State, and local
governments, this program has already proved its worth. Indeed, greater
advances have been made in these fields of endeavor than through all
the previous years of recorded history. N'.any types of diseases, which
only a decade ago were considered hopeless, are now completely curable.
In many respects, we are in the midst of an exciting biomedical revolution.
In fulfilling the historic mission assigned to us by thePresident, ,
we have agreed to consider the following areas of interest:
1. THE MAGNITUDE OF THE PROBLEM
This will include not only a reassessment of present mortality
and disability statistics, but a new appraisal of the costs of these
long-term illnesses to our nation.
. C~
Yet so much remains to be done.
Areas of Interest
Is our network of collecting statistics adequate for obtaining
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the information necessary for the planning of programs to accomplish 0
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9
our goal? If not, what means must be found to provide the required
information?
Is there a need for carrying out special surveys of the prevalence
of these diseases on a national scale? Studies of mortality indicate that:
different parts of the country have diffe'rent death rates from some forms
of these diseases. Does this indicate differences'in prevalence of these
diseases? If so, what are the reasons? Do they indicate that different
ways of life influence the prevalence?
2. WHAT IS THE PRESENT STATE OF THE ART?
What body of research knowledge db we now possess in the diagnosis,
stroke?
Is there a national scientific consensus of what are the most
effective measures in the current treatmwnt of these diseases?. We are
aware of the fact that the msdical literature is replete with claims
for one mode of treatment as compared to another. Is there not a need
for mass evaluations and field trials of existing therapies to test their
efficacy - - analagous in nature to the field trials which proved'the
effectiveness of virus vaccines against poliozqelitis?
3. UTILIZATIOid OF KNUWLEI'iGE
Are we fully utilizing the research knowledge which we are
currently developing in our universities andresearchinstitutions
throughout the country? What are the barriers that delay public acceptance
and utilization of the results of medical research?
10
T'nere is a strong preliminary evidence to the effect that much
of this information is not sifting down to the average doctor in
vrivata ptdo%3ae.
For exaample, the American Cancer Society has repeatedly noted that
we could save the lives of 50% of all victims of cancer if our doctors
in private practice had available the-latest diagnostic tools'developed by
research. Early detection of stroke could lead, in many cases, to
.successful surgical intervention and, in many others, to considerable
amelioration and rehabilitation if the necessary diagnostic procedures
were available to the majority of American doctors.
In the case of all three of these diseases, why are these
diagnostic procedures not widely disseminated?
4. RESEARCH
What are the obstacles to the acquisition of the new research;,
knowledge so obviously needed to cut down.what President Johnson ha
referred to as "the burden and incidence of these diseases"? -
To what degree is the problem a financial one -- a 2.ack of adequate
public and private support, preventing the necessary acceleration of our
national medical research endeavor.
We are mindftial ofthe fact that our medical research effort started
from o,Imost ground zero at the close of World War II. The developments
since then indicate that the.American people have a strong desire to mount
a research offensive against the major diseases.
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