Remarks Following a Tour of Inspection at the National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland.

THE THING I want to say first is that I wish very much each of you could have been with me and seen the enthusiasm and hope, and heard the encouragement that came from these great scientists, these doctors, who are doing so much to make life better and longer in this world.

We ran overtime and we had to eliminate some of our briefing. Our topics were what we are doing in the field of vision, in the field of hypertension, in the field of cancer, in the field of that dread number one killer-heart disease, all of which will very likely confront each of you out there when you reach that milestone in life when these things appear.

Then you will wonder why for 50, 60, or 70 years you have given no thought, no support, or no attention to it. But then it will be too late for you to do much about it because there will be a good many people standing around your room trying to preserve your life.

This is a billion-dollar success story--NIH. This is where I like to come once a year-and more often if possible--to learn what they are doing, in order to try to help them more.

The Gospel of St. John tells of a place where the lame and the halt and the blind went to be cured. That ancient place was called Bethesda.

Two thousand years later, this place called Bethesda also is the place where the sick and the injured can have some hope.

This morning we heard about the modern miracles of healing which have been discovered here--in the last year, particularly-and the progress that has been made since we were here last.

Dr. Shannon and the other NIH Directors have given me a rather full report. They have responded with knowledge and candor to all the questions that we propounded. They have given me a report on some of the matters that we raised last year when we met at the White House.

I should like for them to know--and for all the world to know--that I regard these men as my chiefs of staff in this war on the ancient enemies--sickness and disease. We constantly review our strategy for attacking these major health problems that confront this Nation and other nations in the world.

The progress we are making is slow. I am glad to say, though, we are going up instead of going down.

Some, I am sure--the hotshots--would think we have reached what you might call a stalemate, because we have not found all the answers to all the questions in all the 365 days since we last ran our check--our final exam.

But, there are two or three little things I want to point out, as kind of guiding beacons.

Two years ago, for example, there was an outbreak of rubella--German measles--in America. It caused 30,000 abnormal pregnancies. It killed thousands of little babies. It left thousands of others cruelly afflicted.

There lived near my home, very close to me, some people who worked with me who were afflicted by deafness and mental defects.

But in 2 years, today as a result of research here where you are this morning, a new vaccine to prevent a mother from ever getting German measles has already been developed. Our scientists are working day and night so that we can have an adequate supply of this vaccine available by the early 1970's when the next rubella outbreak is predicted for this country.

This is one small, dramatic example of how this place affects the lives of all of you and of all Americans.

Dr. Shannon has just reported to me that the latest statistics show that infant mortality during the last 12 months took its sharpest downward drop in 10 years. It meant 4,700 babies lived this year who would have died the previous year. It meant 9,400 babies lived this year who would have died, if they had just been born 10 years ago.

Ten thousand lives saved in 10 years. Maybe that is not many, but if you are one of the families affected by one of those 10,000, it is everything.

Research supported by NIH has developed new chemicals and new techniques which are saving thousands of Americans every year from blindness.

We talked this morning about what new procedures could be evolved to detect eye problems at an early age, to detect heart problems before they go too far, to detect hypertension problems--blood clots, blood problems, high blood pressure--or to detect cancer before it spreads and it is gone and it is beyond hope.

Maybe we ought to get some of the people who spent so much time detecting the deficiencies in our automobile, and examining our brake, testing our steering, and testing our headlights, to test our children.

Because, as I said yesterday, if we can spend literally millions to protect. our cows from the screwworms, why can't we spend a little money to protect our children from the rats.

Nine hundred thousand women were tested for cervical cancer this past year under a program here at NIH--one million women. Three thousand cases were found-early enough to do something about them and to cure them. Three thousand more lives saved.

I don't know how much you put on life, but that is what was done here.

NIH research has speeded the development of new chemicals for high blood pressure which have already reduced deaths by 50 percent.

I had a young man in my office whose life was preserved for years because of a great discovery that was made in this field. It meant a lot to me personally, because I saw this great doctor here in Washington keep him living day to day, when most of them had given him up.

One person out of every two who would have died of high blood pressure 10 years ago is living today. One person out of five, under the age of 65, who would have died of a stroke 10 years ago is living today.

All of these achievements are not the fruits of the Presidency or the Democratic party or the Federal Government. They are the fruits of the world's greatest research enterprise. It knows no partisanship, no dictator, or no ruler. They are all aimed at just one thing--just one goal: a better, freer, happier, healthier life for all people.

That is something that ought to unite even the most controversial among us. Even the most cynical should be able to embrace that goal.

This morning I came here to renew my commitment to that goal, to applaud the efforts of these men--just a small percentage of whom are here on the platform--and their attempts to help us reach it, and to discuss with all those I could our future endeavors, and to plan our future programs.

If we are to build a society which guarantees good health for all, we must build it upon very solid foundations.

First and foremost is basic research: the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Because we are human, we explore; we seek to understand the deepest mysteries of our world. The Government supports this creative exploration because we believe that all knowledge is precious; because we know that all progress would halt without it.

But tomorrow's healthy society rests not on our scientists or our medical men only, but it rests also on our political leaders. As you can observe, what they did yesterday may affect what these men do tomorrow.

We have long passed the day when medical research is a job just for some "screwball" in some lonely, makeshift laboratory. Research involves armies of trained technicians, batteries of computers, staggering sums of money.

I remember when I first came here, hearing Frank Bane tell the story of the man in the Virginia State Senate deploring the waste that had occurred when they hired some young college boy, who ran up and down the highways with his shirt tail out, peeping through some little instrument. Why would the people of Virginia have been called upon to waste their money on this college kid to just run up and down the roadway trying to survey it?

Well, when you drive through some of Virginia's roads today, you can see.

So the driving force in this country today for research is government. There is a reason for that: Government is the only one that can really provide the means.

Today the Federal Government supports nearly two-thirds of the total Nation's expenditures on health research. Two-thirds of everything spent in this Nation on health research, the Federal Government spends.

And you here at NIH spend 60 percent of all the Federal Government spends. So we are here where, as I said, this is a billion dollar success story. I want that story to be known by 200 million Americans.

Today the scientists and the medical men decide how to attack a major medical problem, but they depend on public men making political decisions to decide whether to attack that problem.

I have spent hours in appropriations hearings listening to health problems presented-and a good many of them ignored.

I remembered on my way out of that room this morning where I heard these men testify, walking out of the Appropriations Committee one time and hearing them testify about wanting money to use on flies to prevent the development of screwworm to keep the screwworm from getting into cattle, and to keep it from destroying the cattle and killing the baby calves.

Every time a baby calf was born, he was subject to the screwworm. Some lived and some didn't. To save great labor that ranchmen spent going out and picking up the little calves that were half dead, finally the Congress went along and endorsed a program.

Now the whole Southwest no longer knows the screwworm. Through the appropriations the Congress passed--the cattlemen supplemented--we no longer have to have labor to ride out and pick up every little baby calf.

Someday we are going to get intelligent enough to treat our children the same way.

We made some progress with 10,000 of them this year. But we are not going to have to wait until they get into the 10th or 11th grade to see that their eyes have been affected all their lives.

You wouldn't want to test an automobile that had been driven 11 years before you decided it was fit for the highway.

Somehow we are going to find ways to detect the heart problems, the vision problems, the hearing problems, the blood pressure problems, the hypertension problems--all of those, in our children and in ourselves--and the cancer problems, before they are too far gone.

There is no use in opening someone up and saying, "It is too far gone. I can't do anything about it."

It can be done. It must be done--with the help of God and you it will be done.

Thank you.