November 13, 1961

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Between 1952 and 1959 the death rate from hypertensive heart
disease declined 29%.

Daring the last 15 years deaths from acute rheumatic fever have
been reduced over 50%. ‘The same is true for influenza end tuberculosis,
and diphtheria has almost been eliminated as a cause of deaths

One of every three persons with cancer is saved today compared with
one in four just a few years ago due in large part to the chemotherapy
and other research programs of the National Cancer Institute. Through
chemotherapy we now have five-year cures against three types of cancer.
We hed no such cures prior to the Institutes research program. —

A striking example of a "pay-off" from research of the National
Institute of Neurclogical Diseases and Blindness was the discovery of
the cause of retrolental fibroplosia, the leading cause of blindness
in infants prior to their discovery of its cause. It hes been estimated
that the cost of caring for the thousands of children blinded will be
100,000 times the cost of the research that gave us the means for its
prevention. This is a burden of human misery and millions of dollars
a tions will be spared because we spent some money for
res

 
Mr, Rockwell Gray, Sr. -3- November 13, 1961
Mr. Rockwell Gray, Jr.

 yorthwhdle even if there were not this economic return. The alleviation
of human euffering and misery and the fact that the average American
today has six more years of life than he had 15 years ago more than

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