739 



RECAPITULATION OF HEW ACTIVITIES 



The international health activities of the Department of Health, 

 Education, and Welfare, like those of the Agency for International 

 Development, have been in rapid decline over the past few years. There 

 appear to be no plans at this time to reduce the rate of decline, to 

 stabilize the level of support where it now is, or to increase it. On the 

 other hand, activities and budgets of the World Health Organization 

 and the Pan American Health Organization have continued to expand 

 somewhat each year. Although there is U.S. resistance to these 

 "assessed" expansions, the United States continues to meet its commit- 

 ments by treaty to these international organizations and to facilitate 

 certain of their needs and objectives by means of special voluntary 

 contributions. 



InteTruitional Health Activities of the Department of Defense 



Military medicine has long been the backbone of tropical and 

 preventive medicine. The U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force, in 

 that order, have contributed substantially to knowledge of communi- 

 cable disease and still do. Most of this contribution derives from mili- 

 tary operations or anticipated operations in areas where the index of 

 infectious and parasitic disease is high. The improvement in military 

 medical organization beginning during the latter part of the Civil 

 War, tlie ability of the services to attract competent researchers and 

 practitioners, and the extraordinaiy mobility of the armed services, 

 have made it possible for military' medicine to contribute to the remark- 

 able progress of American medicine as a whole and especially to global 

 health problems. Military medicine has produced one of the best medi- 

 cal libraries in the world, and among the medical disciplines it ranks 

 high in the fields of pathology and epidemiology. 



One of the most brilliant and conclusive advances in the control of 

 communicable disease was made by a U.S. Army Board, headed by 

 Major Walter Reed, in 1900. It demonstrated that yellow fever is trans- 

 mitted to man by a species of mosquito, Aedes aegypti. This discovery 

 made it possible to begin the eradication of yellow fever in the United 

 States, the West Indies, and in other parts of the world. It also made 

 possible the building of the Panama Canal by controlling mosquitos 

 and hence yellow fever which prior to such control had incapacitated 

 the engineers and other workers on the project to such an extent that 

 the vrork could not be performed. 



Subsequent activities of import to international health, particularly 

 those developed during World War I and II, have been numerous. 

 Some of the progress and installations are well defined, but on the 

 whole the international medical service and assistance work of the 

 armed forces are "in support of operations" and are not carried in 

 budgetary line items as such, so that no cost estimates can be made. 

 The broad scope of overseas research and assistance as it relates to 

 the health of populations in foreign areas is discussed in a ten-year-old 

 set of United States Senate Hearings.^^- Although the account applies 

 to specific activities as of ten years ago, the broad nature and extent 



1"* U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Government Operations. "The U.S. Government 

 and the Future of International Medical Research." Hearings before the Subcommittee on 

 Reorganization and International Organizations of the . . . Part II. 86th Congress, second 

 session. (Washington, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1961), pages 375-404. 



