The Alzheimer’s Epidemic, Part Two: Today’s Right Could
Learn Lessons from Health Breakthroughs in American History
by James P. Pinkerton 16 Mar 2014
In the first installment of this
series, we noted the explosive growth in the human and financial costs of Alzheimer’s Disease and asked, “Does
the Right have anything to say?”
Mindful of the importance of the
Constitution and the appropriate rule of law, we noted the views of past
presidents James Madison and Abraham Lincoln as they wrestled with the question
of what is, and what is not, a permissible role for government in confronting a
crisis situation.
We can recall Lincoln’s famous quote from 1862, in the
middle of the Civil War; he understood that while our principles must be
timeless, our responses to emergencies must adapt to the need at hand. As the
Sixteenth President declared in a message to Congress:
It is not “can any of us imagine
better?” but, “can we all do better?” The dogmas of the quiet past are
inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty,
and we must rise – with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think
anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our
country.
The Civil War, of course, was
perhaps the greatest crisis our country has ever faced. Yet public health can
be a crisis, too. Epidemics can kill thousands, even millions, without regard
to due process, precedent – or, even, property rights. Yes, the prospect of a
plague is one of those times when we have to come together to think anew and
act anew.
So now we can take a look at how
other presidents have dealt with public-health crises.
In the 19th century, the federal
government could do little about epidemics; the scientific understanding of
causes and remedies just did not exist. And so, for example, 20,000 Americans
along the lower Mississippi River died from a
breakout of yellow fever in 1878. The 1938 movie Jezebel, set in 19th-century Louisiana, starring
Bette Davis and Henry Fonda, vividly depicts the ravages of what was then
called “yellow jack.”
In a few places, forward-looking
local leaders saw the enormous social and economic value of better public
health. The city fathers of Chicago, for
example, could see that the outflow of sewage into Lake
Michigan was causing a public health hazard – deadly diseases that
included typhoid fever, cholera, and dysentery. And so they launched a
remarkable public works project; they resolved to reverse the flow of the Chicago River, so that it flowed in from the lake, not
out to it. They further created the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal so that
sewage would drain into a special reservoir far from the city’s population. The
effort took 35 years, finally completed in 1922. But it was all worth it: Chicago rose to
become the second largest city in America.
Interestingly, national security
imperatives finally forced the beginnings of a national solution to these
plagues.
In 1904, President Theodore
Roosevelt resolved to dig the Panama Canal,
and the issue of malaria and yellow fever came to the forefront of American
politics. Roosevelt knew that the French had
tried and failed to dig the canal several decades earlier, stymied by mass
fatalities from tropical illness. The precise mechanism by which those diseases
were transmitted was not yet understood, but Dr. Walter Reed, an officer in the
U.S. Army Medical Corps, suggested that the culprit was the ubiquitous
mosquito. The key to eliminating deadly disease, he argued, was eliminating the
standing pools of water in which the insects proliferated. Roosevelt, always the
bold leader, made sure that Reed’s strategy was implemented. That is, Americans
hacked out and pushed back the jungle on both sides of the “Big Big.” No
“environmental impact statements” were filed, nor even dreamed of – the issue
was getting the canal built, period.
As a result of this
jungle-clearing, the incidence of disease among work crews was reduced
dramatically, allowing canal construction to go forward. And so Army doctors
joined with the Army Corps of Engineers
to create the legendary path between the seas. The Canal was completed in 1914,
and the US, in firm control
of the zone that straddled the Atlantic and
Pacific Oceans, instantly established itself as the world’s leading strategic
power. It was “Can Do” America
at its best.
Was the mosquito-abatement project
expensive? Of course. But did its huge cost force Roosevelt to curtail the Panama Canal project? Not at all. TR understood that the
mission had to succeed, and that was that. Moreover, it was cheaper to wipe out
the mosquito than to see the canal’s workforce wiped out.
And the lessons of the project
paid dividends for the United
States domestically as well. Once the Panama
Canal effort proved the practicality of mosquito abatement, the same idea was
brought home to the US;
all across the South, standing water was drained, and countless lives were
improved and saved.
We can cite another outstanding
public-health mission, completed by another Republican President: polio. As
historian David M. Oshinsky chronicles in his 2006 book Polio: An American
Story, the disease was a relative newcomer to the U.S.;
the first recorded epidemic occurred near Rutland,
Vermont, in 1894, in which
eighteen people died and fifty were permanently paralyzed. Unpredictable but
unpreventable epidemics would recur in the following years. In New York City, for example, 2,000 cases were
reported in 1907. In Newark,
New Jersey, a 1916 polio epidemic
caused 1,360 cases and 363 deaths. And so on, every few years, the deaths
continued around the country. One such epidemic struck down Franklin D.
Roosevelt in 1921.
In January 1938, two years after
he had been reelected to a second presidential term, FDR helped establish the
National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to fight the dread disease.
The foundation took to the radio
airwaves and filled the national consciousness with a sense of urgency for
conquering the disease. Fund-raising, even in tiny increments, became crucial
to the strategy: “Send Your Dime to President Roosevelt!” urged thirty-second
radio spots. Although the foundation was headquartered in New
York City, the Washington,
D.C., connection was vital: The
White House received nearly 2.7 million letters within days of the first
announcement. The singer and comedian Eddie Cantor coined the phrase “March of Dimes”
as a play on the “March of Time” newsreels, and that moniker was soon on
everyone’s lips. The ultimate goal, alongside continuing treatment and
rehabilitation, was the creation of a vaccine.
Even World War Two did not deter Roosevelt’s
enthusiasm for the project. As he wrote to a March of Dimes official: “The
fight being waged against infantile paralysis... is an essential part of the
struggle in which we are all engaged. Nothing is closer to my heart than the
health of our boys and girls and young men and women. To me it is one of the
front lines of our National Defense.”
Meanwhile, absent a medical
solution, the ravages of the disease worsened. The number of reported cases
during the war years more than doubled, from 9,000 to over 19,000. In his 2010
novel Nemesis, the writer Philip Roth, born in 1933, recalled life in his
hometown of Newark
in the ‘40s:
During the annual fund drive,
America’s young donated their dimes at school to help in the fight against the
disease, they dropped their dimes into collection cans passed around by ushers
in movie theaters, and posters announcing “You Can Help, Too!” and “Help Fight
Polio!” appeared on the walls of stores and offices and in the corridors of
schools across the country, posters of children in wheelchairs – a pretty
little girl wearing leg braces shyly sucking her thumb, a clean-cut little boy
with leg braces heroically smiling with hope – posters that made the
possibility of getting the disease seem all the more frighteningly real to
otherwise healthy children.
The disease was indeed
“frighteningly real.” In 1952, polio was still bringing fear nationwide. A
particularly virulent epidemic struck in that year; of the nearly 58,000 cases
reported, 3,145 died, and 21,269 were left paralyzed, most of the victims being
children.
Meanwhile, beginning in 1948, the
March of Dimes supported the research of many scientists, including Jonas Salk,
a young doctor from New York City
who was researching the idea of a “killed virus” vaccine for influenza as well
as for polio. Operating from two floors at Pittsburgh’s
Memorial Hospital, Dr. Salk could look out his
window and see polio cases being admitted to the hospital every day. As one
nurse recalled of Dr. Salk’s facility: “To leave the place you had to pass a certain
number of rooms, and you’d hear a child crying for someone to read his mail to
him or for a drink of water or why can’t she move, and you couldn’t be cruel
enough just to pass by. It was an atmosphere of grief, terror, and helpless
rage.”
The American people avidly
followed news reports of the progress of the Salk vaccine and other polio
research. Dr. Salk was on his way to becoming a national hero. In 1953, a Gallup poll found that more Americans were aware of polio
research than knew the full name of the new President of the United States,
Republican Dwight D. Eisenhower.
Thanks to all this attention,
March of Dimes funding for Dr. Salk and his colleagues increased steadily,
rising from an initial $1.8 million in 1948 to $67 million by 1955, an increase
of 3,700 percent.
Moreover, the American people were
responding to the March of Dimes and other polio-related appeals in a spirit of
widespread cooperation. Nationwide testing of the Salk vaccine began in the
spring of 1954. Nearly one-and-a-half million school children, dubbed “America’s Polio
Pioneers,” took part in these trials, with the help of another seven million
adult volunteers. According to the March of Dimes, this effort was “the largest
peace-time mobilization of volunteers in U.S. history.” Some powerful
critics railed against the effort, including famed newspaper and radio gossip
Walter Winchell, who in April 1954 warned his audience against the vaccine: “It
may be a killer!” But cooperation, volunteerism, and teamwork were winning the
day as each child in the Pioneer program received three shots, some with a
placebo, others with the real vaccine.
The effort, according to historian
Oshinsky, “involved a mobilization reminiscent of a country preparing for war.”
Amidst isolated reports of side effects (some thirty-eight children who
received the vaccine suffered paralysis) and even death (several hundred of the
Pioneers died during this time, most from unrelated causes, but perhaps five
percent from the vaccine), the vaccinating and evaluating continued.
On April 12, 1955, seventeen years
after the founding of the March of Dimes, victory was finally proclaimed: The
Food and Drug Administration pronounced the Salk vaccine to be “safe and
effective.” Dr. Thomas Francis of the University of Michigan,
the project’s official monitor, made the triumphant announcement before an
audience that included some 150 press, radio, and television reporters.
Fifty-four thousand physicians sitting in movie theaters across the country
watched the announcement on closed-circuit television; the pharmaceutical giant
Eli Lilly had spent $250,000 to broadcast the event. By the time Dr. Francis
had stepped down from the podium, according to medical historian Dr. Paul
Offit, “Church bells were ringing across the country, factories were observing
moments of silence, synagogues and churches were holding prayer meetings, and
parents and teachers were weeping… ‘It was as if a war had ended,’ one observer
recalled.”
Indeed, a war had ended. The war
against polio had effectively been won. On April 22, Dr. Salk was a guest of
honor at a White House ceremony in his honor. President Eisenhower declared the
young doctor, just forty years old, to be “a benefactor to mankind.”
Yes, Salk was a benefactor to
mankind. But so, too, was Eisenhower, who went on to a landslide re-election in
1956. And so, too, were all the millions of Americans – volunteers, donors,
clinical-trial participants – who had been part of the great cure crusade over
the previous two decades. As with the Panama Canal, the victory over polio
stands as a shining and inspiring example of what “Can Do” America can, in
fact, get done.
Both TR and Ike proved, in their
different ways, that leadership toward a great goal is not only a life-saver;
it can also be a political game-changer.
Game-changing for the GOP is
needed today, especially at the national level, where Republicans have sunk
into distinct #2 status. GOPers looking for inspiration might start by looking
back to the successful history of Republican Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and
Dwight Eisenhower.
Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation
About ADDF
Founded in 1998 by co-chairmen Leonard A. and Ronald S. Lauder of the
Estée Lauder cosmetics family, the Alzheimer’s
Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) provides funding to leading scientists who
are conducting the most promising, innovative Alzheimer’s drug research
worldwide. Our goal is to provide seed funding for early-stage research that
may otherwise go unfunded. By supporting cutting edge, diverse, novel research
projects around the globe, we increase the chance of finding a cure.
Through the tremendous support of
our donors, the ADDF has invested nearly $65 million to fund 450 Alzheimer’s
drug discovery programs and clinical trials in academic centers and
biotechnology companies in 18 countries.
100% of your donation goes
directly to Alzheimer’s drug research and related programs. All of the ADDF’s
administrative and overhead costs are covered by a private foundation.
ADDF-Canada
In 2013, the ADDF launched its
first international affiliate, ADDF-Canada. ADDF-Canada will provide funding to
Canadian academic institutions and medical centers engaged in drug discovery
and clinical trials to advance the development of novel therapeutics and
diagnostic tools for Alzheimer’s disease, related dementias and cognitive
aging. For more information on ADDF-Canada, please contact: Howard Fillit, MD,
212-901-800.
Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation
Ronald
S. Lauder is a co-chairman for the Alzheimer's
Drug Discovery Foundation, a 740
Park Avenue, New York
resident, and Leonard A. Lauder’s
brother.
Note: David H. Koch is a 740 Park Avenue, New York resident, and a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Foundation
to Promote Open Society was a funder for the Aspen Institute (think
tank), and the Roosevelt Institute.
George Soros
was the chairman for the Foundation to Promote Open Society.
John
Brademas is a governor at the Roosevelt
Institute, and was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank).
Leonard A. Lauder
is a trustee at the Aspen Institute
(think tank), Ronald S. Lauder’s
brother, and a co-chairman for the Alzheimer's
Drug Discovery Foundation.
James S.
Crown is a trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), and a member
of the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Lester Crown
was a lifetime trustee at the Aspen Institute (think tank), Henry Crown’s son, and is a member of
the Commercial Club of Chicago.
Henry
Crown was Lester Crown’s father,
and a lieutenant colonel for the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers.
Rahm
I. Emanuel is a member of the Commercial
Club of Chicago, the Chicago (IL) mayor,
Ari Emanuel’s brother, and was the
White House chief of staff for the Barack
Obama administration.
Ari
Emanuel is Rahm I.
Emanuel’s brother, and the co-CEO & director for William Morris Endeavor Entertainment.
Rita
Hayworth was William Morris Endeavor
Entertainment client, and her daughter is Yasmin Aga Khan.
Yasmin
Aga Khan is Rita Hayworth’s
daughter, and the president of Alzheimer's
Disease International.
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