ADDRESS OF THE HONORABIR JOHN E. FOGARTY, SECOND CONGRESSIONAL
DISTRICT OF RHODE | ISLAND TO THE FIFTEENTH WORID HEALTH ASSEMBLY
WHICH OPENED MAY 15 IN GENEVA, SWITZERLAND. THIS WILL BE THE
FOURTH MEETING OF THE WHA ATTENDED BY CONGRESSMAN FOGARTY AS AN
ADVISOR TO THE U. S. DELEGATION.

We live in an era when the attention of the world is focused
on the efforts of nations to find ways to work together in common
purposes

The objective of the World Health Organization--to work together
in the common purpose of attaining "the highest possible level of health"
throughout the world--is one of the noblest of these efforts, and one
showing the greatest success thus far.

The Organization has approached its objectives--whether they
have been the eradication of malaria, the development of community
water supply programs, or the promotion of international medical research
--as a body of medical and health scientists largely unfettered by
political considerations which have caused so many other international
enterprises to fail.

Today, as I appear before this World Health Assembly for the
fourth time, I would like to address myself to an objective which the
United States shares with the World Health Organization--the promotion
of international medical research. In sharing this objective we share
two other areas of interests One is a mutual concern for promoting the
status of health throughout the world. The other is a mutual determi-
nation that international medical research shall not become a weapon

of the cold war, that it shall always remain on a scientist to scientist,

doctor to doctor basis and not on a political plane.
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This determination on the part of the United States to keep
medical research out of the international political arena is a reflection
of our domestic policy of supporting medical research without political
interferencee As chairman for many years of a Congressional committee
which recommends appropriations for the medical research programs of
the Public Health Service and the National Institutes of Health, I have
helped maintain this policye Our decision on the amount of the
appropriations is based to a large extent on what the nation's leading
scientists tell us is needed to advance the research on which we all
depend for the means to longer life and better healthe True, my committee
and I sometimes urge the scientists to take a second look at the needs,
to feel free of penny-pinching considerations on this vital matter of
research to promote the nation's health. Yet in our deliberations as
a committee, and in the Congress as a whole, there is no attempt to
influence the research by a political viewpoint or to direct medical
research to follow a political policy.

To return to the international scene, I would like to examine
for a few minutes the evolution of international health activities, and
from them, international medical research activities.

Historically, as we know nations collaborated on health matters
in the interest of protecting trade--not human health. Quarantine
measures to control cholera, plague, yellow fever and smallpox had
operated since the 14th century, but with the expansion of trade, they
began to encumber shipping. Sailors were punished for disobeying
quarantine regulations; infected ships were burnede Quarantine expenses

at times ran as high as 50% of cargo values.
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The first discussion of quarantine measures on the international
level took place in Paris in 1851 and was followed by nine other meetings
before 1900. Nothing came of them, except the fact of having met, be-
cause medical science was not sufficiently developed to deal adequately
with the problems at hand.

The world's first permanent international health organization,
the Pan American Sanitary Burea, was established in the Western
Hemisphere early in the century, antedating by almost a decade the
organizations from which our World Health Organization here in Geneva
traces its descent. We can all be proud of this youngest organization's
record of achievement in eradicating the so -called "infectious disease
belt® of the world.

As these infectious diseases are brought under control, other
problems, unfortunately, arise to take their placee The chronic di-
abling diseases--heart disease, cancer, mental illness, neurological
disorders- -have emerged as the health problems of our time.

Throughout history, health problems--whether chronic or acute--
have transcended national boundaries

But with the well-known discoveries of such men as Pasteur in
France, Koch in Germany, Fleming and Lister in England, and Pavlov in
Russia, it became evident that there would be an international solution
to an international problem. And part of this solution was to come

through researche
ae a

And so it was that in 1959 the U. S. proposed at the Tenth
World Health Assembly in Minneapolis that the World Health Organization
intensively examine its role in medical and health research, and made a
grant to support an intensive study directed toward that end.

During this same period, steps were taken in the Congress of
the United States to expand somewhat our international medical research
activities. I refer, of course, to the passage of the International
Health Research Act of 1960 which I introduced in the House of Repre-
sentatives. Although since its founding in 1930, the National Institutes
of Health had been authorized to support research investigations in this
and other countries, it was this 1960 Act that gave for the first time
explicit and emphatic expression to Congress’ support of international
medical research

Underlying this support was the Congressional intention that
a clear distinction must be drawn between technical assistance and
foreign aid programs on the one hand, and on the other, the support of
research abroade ‘The research program has been established and conducted
solely in the interests of science. Its objective is to support medical
research performed by foreign scientists when such studies will advance
the health status of the United States as well as the country in which
the research is conducted.

The program-may be compared to a three-legged stool. The legs,
all of which are necessary to support the stool, are the research grants
program, the training program, and the program for the dissemination of

research findings.
he

Research grants are awarded to support studies of infectious
disease, nutrition, and epidemiological surveys of large popujation
groups, to mention but a few areas of interest. These projects are
supported strictly on the basis of their scientific merit after thorough
and painstaking technical reviewe

And because the program is neither an aid or a welfare program,
research grants abroad are made to add to rather than to replace exist-
ing local programs, with the ultimate objective of encouraging the
recipient country to assure increasing support of its own science
activities.

As an example of the United States intention to support over-
seas research out of scientific--not political--considerations, I
would like to call attention to a recent grant of $2 million which
the National Institutes of Health has made to Poland.

The grant is financing a program of cooperation between Polish
and United States scientists on ten laboratory projects ranging from
functional organization of the brain to causes of prenatal malformation
in children. Most of the research will be done in Poland by Polish
scientists.

Discussions leading to this agreement survived the Berlin crisis
and numerous other international political difficulties. Yet because
our countries have been seeking similar objectives, because the uniting
of our different approaches could mean greater progress in a shorter amount

of time, we have collaborated for the benefit of all mankind.
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The second leg of the stool--the research training program--
has as its major element the International Fellowships Program. Under
it, outstanding young medical scientists may study for periods up to
two years in United States universitites and research institutions. In
addition, U. S. scientists are able to study abroad under the sponsor-
ship of outstanding foreign research scientists under this programe

The third leg of the stool is most vital because its purpose is
to disseminate new research findings so that they may be put to good
use throughout the world. In this new and unexplored area--the problems
are unprecedented. We will have to find ways to handle the "explosion®
in medical literature and arrange for the prompt publication and
dissemination of research information. We will have to find imaginative
and effective new ways to surmount language barriers.

In our effort to cope with some of the perplexing problems, an
expert from the United States has recently been assigned to the
World Health Organization as a specialist on the international exchange
of scientific information.

This, in broad terms, is what we are doinge And the reason we
are doing it may be termed a kind of “selfish unselfishness." For
although we tenefit from the talents and skills of highly competent for-
eign scientists, we are at the same time helping to strengthen the
research knowledge and scientific potential of not only the countries

where research is supported, but of other countries as well.
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We are supporting international research because it forges
weapons for peace, not war; because there is a great need for it, and
our country must do what it can to help meet that need. We are
supporting it because it will help in the realization of our asperations
of better health for a better world.

International health represents an endless quest for freedom
from hunger, freedom from tragic disability, freedom from premature
death, freedom from suffering.

By working together in common purpose, by broadening areas of
international cooperation and agreement, by stressing for the present
that which can be stressed, and by channeling certain forces in
operation throughout the world into areas of common interest, we may
hope eventually to achieve through world health, man's highest goal--

that of world order and world peace.