Volume 1

Long-range program and research needs in aging and related fields : hearings before the Special Committee on Aging, United States Senate, Ninetieth Congress, first session Washington, D.C. December 5 and 6, 1967.

  • United States Senate Special Committee on Aging
Date:
1968-
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Long-range program and research needs in aging and related fields : hearings before the Special Committee on Aging, United States Senate, Ninetieth Congress, first session Washington, D.C. December 5 and 6, 1967. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    how fast gerontology can be expanded and still maintain the quality which is expected of National Institutes of Health supported research. Part of the solu- tion has nothing to do with the administration or government and requires that Scientists doing research in this area do exciting, stimulating studies which at- tract people to the field because of interest, relevance and success. This can not be legislated, On the other hand, scientists are influenced, and I believe to a con- siderable degree, by a desire for public approval on the significance of their work. I believe that statements by senators, hearings, press releases and availability of funds all contribute to increasing the interest in gerontology. I am sure that you would find Dr. Duncan very helpful in preparing material for your convocation. I believe you also know Frances Carp who has been in both the extra and intramural programs and will shortly leave NIH for a posi- tion in Los Angeles. However, Dr. Ewald Bussey, Chairman of the Psychiatry Department at Duke, now on the Council, is the former chairman of the train- ing grant study section and is familiar with many of the problems. The Veterans Administration has been quite active in gerontology research as you can see from Dr. Driver’s report which begins on page 76 in your Report 169 of the Ninetieth Congress. The prime mover for aging research within the Vet- erans Administration is Dr. Joe Meyer who you may know since he spent a year recently with Senator Harris’ Governmental Operations Committee. I believe Dr. Meyer is someone you should talk with. The Atomic Energy Commission plays quite an important role in aging research although they are a little cautious about admitting it since it is not part of their identified mission. You might want to read once again Glenn Seaborg’s state- ment on page 88 of your report. The resources of the National Laboratories for this type of work are excellent and it is gratifying that the National Institutes of Health have recently given Howard Curtis at Brookhaven National Laboratory a training grant. I note that the National Science Foundation has no research program on aging due to the feeling that this is a National Institutes of Health prerogative. They do not feel this way about embryology and i am not clear why the latter aspects of development would be different from earlier ones. While there are bound to be budgetary problems, money itself is not what is limiting the growth of gerontology. What is needed is better recognition of what biochemistry with its more recent developments can contribute. Aging can now be understood. It is no more difficult to seek to understand aging than it is malignancy. We have the tools. We now know, in a general way, how cells de- velop and to some extent why they die. While it is true we know more about the control of the life of a bacteria, Escherichia Coli, than we do of a rat we will within the foreseeable future understand the control of the development of a rat and its aging. This view is now being expressed by scientists other than geron- tologists. I would particularly like to cal] attention to public statements by James Bonner of California Institute of Technology given to the Harris group in Okla- homa City and statements by Robert L. Sinsheimer also of Cal. Tech. which apparently you have seen. Both of these men are extremely eminent scientists. I endorse the view of Dr. Kinzell given to your committee in the last set of hear- ings which reflects at least some of the thinking at Salk Institute. Among geron- tologists Dr. Bernard Strehler, who will shortly join the Biology Department at the University of Southern California, has been particularly forceful in pre- senting the case for gerontological research. In addition, a group of interested laymen is beginning to evolve. Mrs. Florence Mahoney of Georgetown has become interested in this program through her service on the Council of Ch and HD. Two other very effective laymen are Paul Glenn, a commodities broker at Hornblower, Weeks, Hemphill and Noyes in New York City and Lucius Burch, an attorney in Memphis, Tennessee. Both Mr. Burch and Mr. Glenn have given very effective testimony on behalf of the Veterans’ Administration program. You could help us, Mr. Oriol, in this field with your hearings. Much of the work we have to do in the laboratory. Nevertheless, there is a problem in visibility and in presenting the problem of the impacts that this research will have on our society to the public and our fellow scientists. Indeed, the potential here is great for producing sociological and to some extent political revolution. I be- lieve that the Congress should know what is going on. Those of us close to these issues are particularly aware of the problems. It is clear, however, that the present effort is, viewed broadly, inadequate and no-