Published July 1961 — Download PDF of the original newspaper column
From the Office of UNITED STATES SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD Room 342, Old Senate Office Building, Washington 25, D. C. Volume I -- Number 30 7-28-61
BYRD'S EYE VIEW A Public Service Column by SENATOR ROBERT C. BYRD DISEASE RESEARCH DOLLARS HELD INADEQUATE FOR NATIONS HEALTH In defense of our lives, we spent over $43 billion in fiscal 1961 against possible military attack. Nobody quibbled over this price. All of us considered it as necessary national insurance, for no price would seem too high to pay for the right as a free people to live in peace. But while we think nothing of paying whatever price is asked of us for peace, we do not consider the Nation's health in the same terms. In fiscal 1961, for example, the Government spent a mere $560 million to defend us against all the diseases that kill and cripple us -- diseases which each year take a far bigger toll of American lives than the combined total we have lost in all the wars we have fought. In 1959 alone, 838,970 Americans lost their lives through heart and circulatory diseases roughly one death every half minute of every hour of every day during the year. In that same year, we also lost 259,090 persons as a result of cancer. Other diseases accounted for an additional 201,000 deaths. Added to this fearsome toll are more than 31,800,000 Americans who are suffering from some disease-caused disability. Some of these disabilities are the painful kinds, like arthritis and rheumatism; other may be mental disorders which, though perhaps without pain, are just as disturbing to the life of the human being involved. If an enemy air attack were to erase and disable as many American lives, we would mobilize our entire national strength to repel and smite the invader. Yet the funds appropriated by the Congress for the support of medical research, although substantial, are still not sufficient to assure the full utilization of the Nation's potential for an attack on all diseases. Today we spend vast sums of money for space exploration. We know it is imperative that we spend these sums if we are to keep abreast of other powers in the race for the moon. And we are electrified by the spectacular ride of an astronaut into the fringes of outer space. But in the course of human events the conquering of cancer would actually be of far greater significance. Certainly, the entire world was stirred when Dr. Jonas Salk announced that he had perfected a vaccine against polio. But because the scourge of polio has been all but wiped out in this country, we have forgotten that the cost of conquering this dreaded disease was met in the main through private contributions. The reason for this was that Government funds for this battle were never sufficient for the research involved. Economy at the expense of human life is the worst kind of extravagance. When so many Americans are suffering from cancer, heart disease and mental illness, it is penny-wise and pound -" foolish not to forge ahead in medical research. Surely, the Government has a moral obligation in this respect. But aside from the moral aspect involved, it makes good business sense for the Government to invest more money in medical research o It should be evident to all that the people whose lives will be saved, and whose health will be improved by such research, will be able to pay into the Treasury taxes many times greater in amount than the cost of these programs in medical research. -- 30 --