Lasker Foundation Threatens Free Speech

Pamela A. Mann, LLC, speaking in the name of the Lasker Foundation, has falsely accused me of "operating a website, http://www.smokershistory.com/, that purports to be the official website of the [Lasker] foundation." Nonsense. This website no more purports to be the official website of the Lasker Foundation than it purports to be the official website of the Morgan Guaranty Trust. Furthermore, no one could be more pleased than myself NOT to be mistaken for an institution which I regard as infamous.

They accuse me of intending to "cause serious harm to its philanthropic activities." My research shows that said "philanthropic activities" consist in large part of controlling the US Congress' disposal of our tax dollars in the budget of the National Institutes of Health; and directing public money into corrupt and specious research which stigmatizes, marginalizes and disenfranchises smokers.

And, they "hereby demand" that I "cease and desist from 1) maintaining this purported Foundation website; 2) defaming our client; 3) making any reference on your website to the Foundation, its officers, directors, donors, and any other person associated with it." They fail to specify any statement or statements which they regard as defamatory. And their demand that I not speak of them whatsoever is a pure and simple attempt to intimidate me out of exercising my right to free speech on public policy issues. -cast

Pamela A. Mann is a member of the Council of Advisors of the National Coalition Against Censorship, along with Gerard Piel, chairman emeritus of Scientific American. Its name ought to be the National Coalition Against Censorship on Pet Issues of the Elite, because the suppression of criticism of anti-smoker scientific fraud has no place in their agenda. One of their projects is anti-smoker Rep. Henry Waxman's complaint that science is being manipulated by the Bush Administration. This is the Congressman who pulled the cute little trick of deliberately scheduling a hearing of his Committee on Health and the Environment for the same time as a subcommittee hearing at which testimony critical of the EPA Risk Assessment on ETS was being heard, so the media could fixate upon EPA Administrator Carol Browner releasing a new brochure, called What You Can.Do About Secondhand Smoke, and ignore the criticism. The EPA brochure relied upon so-called "science" manufactured for the purpose under illegal pass-through contracts to handpicked anti-smoking activists, with the manager of the Bush-Quayle election campaign on the board of directors on the pass-through company. (Censoring Scientific Information, Fall 2003.).

Since the 1940s, the traitorous US Congress has pumped uncounted billions of dollars into the pockets of Mary Lasker, her cronies and stooges, and their successors. They have let this conspiracy of socialites and banksters, and their pseudo-scientific lackeys, do as they damn pleased with it, under the pretext of "health research." They have used it to corrupt science and create a gigantic racketeering empire, in and out of government, to force their social engineering goals on an unwilling nation.

Longtime associates of Mary Lasker

Elmer H. Bobst

Elmer Bobst was a member of the Lasker group that took over the American Society for the Control of Cancer in 1945.

Theodore Cooper

Cooper was a correspondent of Mary Lasker from 1970 to 1992. He was Assistant Secretary for Health of DHEW from 1975 to 1977; Dean of Cornell University Medical College from 1977 to 1980; and chairman of the board and CEO of The Upjohn Co. from 1980. He was a Trustee of the Naylor Dana Institute of the American Health Foundation from 1979 to 1981.

Michael E. DeBakey

Michael E. DeBakey was involved in the early research on smoking and lung cancer, with Alton Ochsner. He was Chair of the Lasker Medical Research Awards Jury from 1965 to 1995.

Anna Rosenberg Hoffman

She was a director of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation in 1975.

Frances Humphrey Howard

She was the aunt of Minnesota Attorney General Hubert Humphrey III, who filed the main lawsuit against the tobacco companies in 1994.

Florence Mahoney

Mary Lasker and Florence Mahoney worked as a team in their Congressional lobbying, with Mahoney specializing in the social activities. Mahoney also represented their interests on numerous National Institutes of Health Advisory Councils.

Current Directors

Mrs. William McCormick Blair Jr. (Deeda) (Emeritus Director, Nov. 2005)

Socialite Mrs. William McCormick Blair Jr. (aka "Deeda"), whose association with Mary Lasker goes back at least to 1961, is a director and Vice President of the Lasker Foundation. She also has or had positions on the boards of important organizations such as the Harvard School of Public Health and its Medical School, the Scripps Research Institute, the American Cancer Society, and Rockefeller University.

Christopher W. Brody (Trustee, Director and Treasurer, Nov. 2005)

James Fordyce and Christopher Brody of the Lasker Foundation at the dedication of the Mary Lasker Biomedical Research Building at Columbia, Nov. 2, 1995.

The Brody Family includes Christopher Brody, Treasurer of the Lasker Foundation; other members of the Lasker family including Mr. and Mrs. Sidney Brody and Francie Brody; and Brodys with suspected Lasker ties due to their proximity to Lasker Syndicate activity, such as Jane Brody of the New York Times; William J. Brody of the Minneapolis Foundation, a recipient of the Minnesota tobacco lawyers' largesse; and William R. Brody, president of The Johns Hopkins University.

W. Michael Brown (Secretary, since 2003)

W. Michael Brown, former CEO and Deputy Chairman of The Thomson Corporation, is on the advisory board of Family Capital Growth Partners LP, along with James E. Hughes Jr., the past Secretary of the Lasker Foundation. [The current president and CEO of The Thomson Corporation, Robert Cullen, is also a director of the Lasker Foundation.]

"W. Michael Brown Former President, The Thomson Corporation Michael Brown retired in 1997 from the role of President and CEO of The Thomson Corporation, one of the world's leading information and publishing companies with annual revenues of over $6 billion. He began his career at Thomson in 1969 as Director of Times Newspapers, then publisher of the prestigious London Times and its sister paper, The Sunday Times. In 1982, he became the first Chief Executive of Thomson's new U.S. publishing and information business and was appointed President of The Thomson Corporation in 1989. Since retiring from Thomson, Michael has devoted much of his time, as an advisor and a Board member, to various information and technology businesses." Thomson owns the Toronto Globe and Mail and other media. Brown is an advisor of Etrana. He joined Thomson in 1969 as director of Thomson Newspapers Ltd., after eight years with British cable manufacturer BICC. (Canada's Thomson names a president. New York Times, May 29, 1984.)

The Crimes of Thomson/Gale/Information Access Company: Freelance writer Irv Muchnick "discovered that previously published articles of mine were getting knocked off by for-profit databases."

W. Michael Brown, an "Independent business consultant and investor," is a member of the Environmental Defense board.

Purnell W. Choppin (Director, Nov. 2005)

Choppin was the president of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, one of the largest medical philanthropies in the world, from 1987 until the end of 1999. He is one of those peculiar Lasker entities, a virologist who doesn't care about viral causes of chronic disease. To them, viruses are merely a tool by which to study the function of genes, and they channel as much money as possible into genetics research instead.

Includes links to members of the Washington Advisory Group, an entity formed to channel tobacco settlement money to cronies.

Robert Cullen (Director, Nov. 2005)

Robert C. Cullen is the President and CEO of Thomson Scientific and Healthcare, part of The Thomson Corporation media mega-conglomerate. Pollster Humphrey Taylor, former New York Times reporter Martin Tolchin, and former Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health Alfred Sommers also joined the board. (Lasker Foundation Names Robert Cullen New Director. Thomson Corporation Press Release, 04/06/2005.) The former CEO and deputy chairman of The Thomson Corporation, W. Michael Brown, is also a director of the Lasker Foundation.

James W. Fordyce (Chairman, Trustees, Nov. 2005)

Director and Chairperson of the Lasker Foundation. Mary Lasker's obituary in The New York Times, Feb. 23, 1994, identifies him as her nephew. According to a bio on a defunct link: "James W. Fordyce (Westport, CT) has been a venture capital investor since 1971, initially with Citicorp Venture Capital Ltd. Mr. Fordyce is a founder of Prince Ventures. He has a continuing interest in the medical and biological sciences and has been actively involved with the medical community for many years. He is a Director of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation; the American Cancer Society, where he has been Chairman of the Research and Clinical Investigations Committee; and the Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology. He has served on Visiting Committees at Columbia University, Health Sciences Faculties; the Wisconsin Clinical Cancer Center of the University of Wisconsin; and Massachusetts General Hospital. He is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania; Magdalen College, Oxford University; and the Harvard Business School. Mr. Fordyce currently serves on the Board of Directors of a number of the Prince Ventures' portfolio companies, including Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc." Fordyce resigned from Regeneron in 1996.

"Velquest Corporation closes $9.2 million in equity financing - MedEquity Investors and Chase Capital Partners Lead Financing." (MedEquity Press Release, Oct 5., 2000.) James W. Fordyce joins the Board of Directors. Fordyce is Managing Member of Fordyce & Gabrielson LLC, which "has a strategic partner relationship with BancBoston Ventures." Fordyce is also currently a director of Dyax Corp. and several private companies. Thomas L. Kempner, Chairman and CEO of Loeb Partners Corp., is another director of Dyax, and Henry E. Blair is Chairman and CEO. Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh's wife, Susan B. Bayh, has been a director of Dyax since 2003.

Fordyce was a sponsoring member of the Citizens' Committee for the Conquest of Cancer, co-founded by Mary Lasker's crony, Sidney Farber, and co-chaired by Emerson Foote of the American Cancer Society and Solomon Garb, who was a correspondent of Mary Lasker between 1969 and 1981. Other sponsoring members included William McC. Blair Jr., Mrs. William McC. Blair Jr., Elmer H. Bobst; R. Lee Clark; Mrs. Alice Fordyce, Mary's sister and his mother; Mary's old friend, Leonard Goldenson of ABC-TV; Mrs. Paul G. Hoffman, aka Anna Rosenberg; Robert W. Holley of the Salk Institute; Mathilde Krim; Hollywood producer Norman Lear; William Regelson, founder of FIBER, on whose board Mary later served; and Bernard J. Reis, Treasurer of the Lasker Foundation. Garb sent a bullying letter to Curtis H. Judge, President of Lorillard Inc., demanding that "the tobacco industry" lobby for "higher total appropriations to NCI" and that "the Tobacco Research Institute [sic] should allocate substantial sums to finding anticancer drugs in plants." (Garb to Judge, Sep. 20, 1978.)

Fordyce was a member of the 1997 Columbia-Presbyterian Health Sciences Advisory Council, along with Thomas L. Chrystie, former Trustee of the Naylor Dana Institute and the American Health Foundation; Mathilde Krim; and David J. Mahoney.

James W. Fordyce is an Honorary Life Member of the American Cancer Society, and a member of the ACS National Assembly (New England).

2002 Board of Directors of Friends of the National Library of Medicine: Longtime Lasker ally former Rep. Paul G. Rogers is chaiman. Other board members: Former Assistant Secretary for Health Edward N. Brandt Jr.; former HEW chief Joseph A. Califano Jr.; Lois DeBakey; Mary Lasker's crony Michael E. DeBakey; Mary's nephew, James Fordyce; her friend, Frances Humphrey Howard; Joshua Lederberg; Gilbert Omenn's mentor, Robert G. Petersdorf; Former Surgeons General Julius B. Richmond and Louis W. Sullivan; John Whitehead of Research!America; Susan Whitehead; and Mary Woolley, President of Research!America.

Mrs. James W. Fordyce of Greenwich, Conn., was the daughter of William H. Boardman of Brookline, Mass. His best man was Antal Post de Bekessy of Paris, France. (James W. Fordyce Weds Miss Anne C. Boardman. New York Times, Jun. 21, 1970). "[Boardman] formerly lived in Seekonk, and worked in Providence as sales manager for the Bethlehem Steel Corp. before receiving a promotion that brought him to Boston. In Boston, Mr. Boardman had been an assistant to the general director of Massachusetts General Hospital. As assistant for special projects, he sought donations for the hospital from corporations and foundations for nearly 15 years.... Born in New York, a son of the late Francis and Anne Boardman, he grew up in Riverdale-on-Hudson, N.Y. He attended the Horace Mann School and Deerfield Academy before matriculating to Williams College and graduated in 1936. Mr. Boardman then attended a two-year course in metallurgy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. After graduation, he worked for Bethlehem Steel for 30 years and retired in 1968." (William Boardman, ex-president of Meeting Street School, dies. Providence Journal. Providence, R.I.: Mar 02, 1989. pg. B-04; Lynne Anne Stanton, Richard B. Boardman Set July 23 Wedding. New York Times, May 22, 1977.) William H. Boardman Jr. was Associate Vice President for Capital Giving at Harvard University. (Harvard Benefactor and Friend John Loeb Dies at 94. Harvard Gazette, Dec. 12, 1996; Robert Stone, 83, Harvard Corporation member for 27 years. Harvard Gazette, April 19, 2006.)

James and Doni Fordyce (relationship unknown) were $500-999.00 donors to the Valerie Fund, for children with blood disorders. In 2001, Doni Fordyce was President and Chief Executive of Bear Stearns Asset Management Inc., a $20 billion venture capital fund. (Bear Stearns Health Innoventures Closes $212 Million Fund. Bear Stearns Press Release April 26, 2001.)

Doni Fordyce is Executive Vice President of the Madison Square Boys and Girls Club Women's Board and Dinner Committee. Former Trustee of the American Health Foundation and American Cancer Society director Brenda LaGrange Johnson is a Vice President of the Board of Trustees; Bruce S. Gelb, senior consultant to Bristol-Myers Squibb, is Vice Chairman of the Board.

In 1996, Donalda Fordyce was a lobbyist for Bear Stearns & Co., Inc., in Los Angeles County, California.

Doni Fordyce began at Goldman, Sachs in the structured bond portfolio group and 11 years later was head of institutional marketing. (Problem Solver. By Christine Williamson. Pensions and Investments 2002 May 13;30(10):34.)

Jordan U. Gutterman (Director, Nov. 2005)

"The foundation's 1987 tax statement cites expenses of $734,000, including $168,000 paid to employees and board members, and operating losses of $258,000. The 1988 statement reports expenses of $691,000, including $214,000 in pay, and net losses of $390,000. Meanwhile, the foundation's assets, which stood at $4.5 million in 1980 and $4.3 million as late as December 1986, were drawn down to $3.6 million in late 1987 and plummeted to $2.2 million at the end of 1988. The last figure reflects a 1988 transfer of $813,000 from the Lasker Foundation to establish the Biomedical Research Foundation in Norfolk, Va. Its president is a Lasker board member, Dr. Jordan U. Gutterman, professor of medicine and immunology at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Hospital in Houston. Although the latter foundation, which studies the cancer-fighting chemical interferon, has a Virginia address, Gutterman said most of its work is done at Anderson. He said he joined the Lasker board about five years ago and has been a Lasker juror since 1978, but he and others denied any impropriety in the transfer of funds. In 1978, Gutterman said, Lasker provided a large sum of money to buy interferon for ``pioneering'' research into the chemical. The 1988 grant, he said, will help continue such research. Gutterman, [Alice] Fordyce and [counsel David A.] Morse said the $813,000 never belonged to the Lasker Foundation and that the funds transfer did not aggravate its financial problems, despite what looked like a sudden drop in its asset holdings. If the money had not been raised, Gutterman said, the asset balance would still have declined, but more slowly. The three board members said the $813,000 was raised from outside sources to support Gutterman's interferon research before he joined the board. The Lasker Foundation, they said, merely held the money in escrow." (Lasker hiatus, losses unrelated, boss says. By Rad Sallee. Houston Chronicle, Mar. 11, 1990.)

Director, Representative of the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards Program. (Mary Lasker's sister Alice Fordyce had been the director of the Awards Program until December 1990, when Gutterman assumed the position.) Professor of Medicine, University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. The Mary Lasker Papers show 3 folders of correspondence, from 1976 to 1992. He is also on the Scientific Advisory Council of the Cancer Research Institute, and on the Scientific Advisory Board of OXIS and Cell Genesys Management.

Tobacco case helps fund cancer center. Dallas News 2001 Nov 7. Texas trial lawyers John Eddie Williams, F. Kenneth Bailey, Harold Nix, C. Cary Patterson, John O'Quinn and Walter Umphrey give $8 million to MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston (out of the $3.3 billion in legal fees that they looted).

Another Lasker connection with the University of Texas is Enron director Charles A. LeMaistre, a prime coordinator of the anti-smoking activities of the ACS, AHA, ALA and related groups. MD Anderson's first president, R. Lee Clark, was on the President's Cancer Panel of the National Cancer Institute.

Neen Hunt (President, Director and Trustee, Nov. 2005)

President of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation; Executive Vice President since 1996; Executive Director of the Mary Woodard Lasker Charitable Trust. Neen Hunt was the Head of the Calhoun School, located in the West Side of Manhattan, from 1980 to 1992. It describes itself as "a progressive, independent" prep school, and "a progressive circle committed to women's rights, community health and civil service reform." "All the girls from 'Our Crowd' came here," a trustee once said, "from Peggy Guggenheim to the Morgenthaus to the Strausses." Also Edith Altschul Lehman and Helen Boas Yampolsky. It was originally called the Jacobi School after its founder, Laura Jacobi, and later renamed for Mary Edwards Calhoun, a Philadelphia Quaker.

The Scientist notes that Hunt "was previously executive vice president and chief operating officer at the United Nations Association-USA." (Notebook. The Scientist 1995 June 26;9(13):31)

She is a member of the Executive Committee of the Lasker Foundation's Funding First lobbying group.

Daniel E. Koshland Jr. (Director, Nov. 2005)

Daniel E. Koshland, Senior, was an executive with the Levi Strauss company, the heirs of which provide funding for anti-smoking propagandist Stanton Glantz at UCSF through their Richard and Rhoda Goldman Foundation. Daniel E. Koshland, Junior, may have been acquainted with Theodor Sterling at the University of Chicago. James M. Koshland is on the Levi Strauss Board of Directors. Other relatives include a nephew of the founder of Heller Ehrman LLP, who financed Philip Morris while the law firm incorporated the creators of the nicotine patch.

Alfred Sommer (Director, Nov. 2005)

Sommer's qualification for Laskerdom: Psychopathic anti-smoker lies. In fact, it is the LASKER FOUNDATION which throughout the last six decades has suppressed research and distorted priorities (while siphoning off billions of our tax dollars and controlling the Council for Tobacco Research as well); furthermore, his vaunted faculty at Johns Hopkins are ringleaders of the gang of criminals who deliberately use defective studies in order to falsely blame tobacco and completely mislead the public.

TO:Faculty, JHU School of Hygiene and Public Health FROM:Alfred Sommer, MD, MHS DATE:March 21, 2000 RE:Support of Scientific Research by Organizations Associated with the Tobacco Industry Our faculty have provided substantial evidence that tobacco use is the single greatest cause of preventable disease, disability and death in the United States, and increasingly, around the world; and that addiction to tobacco is a public health issue which warrants the strongest measures. The Advisory Board is also mindful of recent evidence indicating that research sponsored by organizations and companies directly or indirectly funded by the tobacco industry is often systematically manipulated by the choice of projects selected for support and to the way in which their results are interpreted, as a deliberate strategy to purposely mislead the public about the adverse health effects of tobacco use. In the Advisory Board's opinion, the extent of disease, disability, and death caused by smoking and the conduct on the part of the tobacco industry are so completely at variance with the stated mission of the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public: Health that it is inappropriate for this School to knowingly accept research support from the tobacco industry.With due respect for the academic freedom of members of the faculty and their right to pursue any and all legal avenues of inquiry, the School will no longer accept new research grants or contracts from organizations known to be directly or indirectly funded by the tobacco industry. While; faculty may, of course, seek and receive such funds in their capacity as private individuals, the Advisory Board feels doing so should at the very least be an informed decision as well as a matter of conscience." (Sommer Memo, March 21, 2000.) Jonathan M. Samet, the anti-smokers' star perjuror at the Minnesota tobacco trial, was a member of the advisory board.

Sommer was a member of Roz D. Lasker's Committee on Medicine and Public Health, who received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to produce their monograph, Public Health and Medicine, and related publications. (Monograph Documents the Emergence of Collaborative Relationships Between Medicine and Public Health Professionals. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Grant Results Report, April 2001.)

"The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health on Friday announced it will establish a new interdisciplinary department to study human behavior and health. The department will develop ways to prevent behaviors associated with the leading causes of illness and premature death. It is being created with a $20 million gift from a donor who does not wish to be identified. Hopkins officials said the department of behavior and health will take new approaches to intervention programs by focusing on the social context of change. The development of new intervention techniques will involve individual and systems changes to promote healthier lifestyles through education, regulation, legislation and social policies. 'We now understand that interventions that target the individual alone are inadequate,' Dr. Alfred Sommer, dean of the School of Public Health said in a statement. 'For example, by themselves education programs had only a limited impact on smoking, but when combined with high taxes on cigarettes and regulations restricting smoking in public buildings, smoking was dramatically reduced in the United States.' With the $20 million gift, commitments to the Johns Hopkins Knowledge for the World campaign total more than $988 million, just shy of half of the university's $2 billion goal. Nearly $240 million has been donated to the School of Public Health." (New Hopkins department will study human behavior, health. Baltimore Business Journal, May 2, 2003.) See how FREEEEEEEEEE we are in Bloodsucker Land, with our bloodsucker dictators picking our pockets to coerce and manipulate us, lying in our faces, smearing and defaming us, and gloating in triumph as our traitorous so-called "leaders" lick their boots and sell us out!

Sommer is professor of Epidemiology, International Health, and (at the School of Medicine) Ophthalmology. He was dean of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health from 1990-2005. He is a member of the Advisory Board of the Pan American Health Organization, along with anti-smoking activists Mohammad N. Akhter of the American Public Health Association; Jo Ivey Boufford, Dean of New York University; William H. Foege; Jeffrey P. Koplan, and Timothy E. Wirth. He is an alumnus of Foege's smallpox eradication program, and has been a director of Becton, Dickinson since 1998 and T. Rowe Price since 2003.

He is a 2005 director of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health, along with Charles A. Sanders, former Rep. John Edward Porter, Mrs. William McCormick Blair Jr., and Joshua Lederberg, et al.

Humphrey Taylor (Director, Nov. 2005)

Taylor was Acting Chairman of the American Health Foundation from June 1986 to September 1987, and Chairman from October 1987 at least until February 1993; and President of Louis Harris and Associates, the polling firm.

Martin Tolchin (Director, Nov. 2005)

TIME magazine, the Lasker Foundation's PR shill

Instead of investigative reporting on the schemes and scams of the Lasker Syndicate, the media have always been their fawning toadies. See, for example, the 2000 Lasker Awards to their flunkies and stooges, including the Science Times of the New York Times, and to William Safire on behalf of David Mahoney of the Dana Foundation, with NBC News anchor Jane Pauley as MC, and website coverage by Time magazine. (Note the Lasker Foundation's incestuous relationship with the Dana Foundation: the latter was established by New York legislator Charles Dana, along with Lasker Syndicate insider Dr. Sidney Farber.

Their "Public Understanding of Science Award" to the Science Times of the New York Times is a reward for pushing the Lasker agenda. They don't want public understanding of science at all. This award is for being unquestioning stooges for the Syndicate's fraudulent lifestyle questionnaire studies, which exploit confounding to falsely blame smoking (as well as other bogus "risk factors") for diseases caused by infection. And, they strive to dazzle their readers with high-tech glitz, to make the public submit to pouring more millions of tax dollars into the pockets of the Syndicate and the reductionist minutiae of their most-favored pets.

Time, Inc. was founded by members of Skull & Bones, with financing from Anthony N. Brady's tobacco money. And, their support of health fascism began in the 1920s.

Research!America is the Lasker Foundation's biggest funding lobby

Past Directors of the Lasker Foundation

William J. Donovan

William J. Donovan was a director of the Lasker Foundation during the 1950s.

Alice Fordyce

"For almost 50 years, Mrs. Fordyce and her sister, Mary Woodard Lasker, were the driving forces behind the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, which awarded the Albert Lasker Medical Research Awards.... Mrs. Fordyce, who was born in Watertown, Wis., the daughter of a bank president, graduated from Smith College in 1928 and studied at the Sorbonne and the University of Grenoble in France. The sisters' interest in supporting medical research stemmed from the ear infections that Mary Lasker endured and from both their mother and father's suffering from hypertension. Mrs. Fordyce served on many governmental committees and with health-related organizations, including the United States branch of the World Association for Psychosocial Rehabilitation, the International Council for Coordinating Cancer Research, the United States Cerebral Palsy Research and Educational Foundation, the Rockefeller University Council, the Geriatric Advisory Council of the Mount Sinai Medical Center and the Psychiatry Department at Columbia University. Mrs. Fordyce was also involved with civic activities that included the American Museum in Britain, the Leeds Castle Foundation, Bargemusic and the Port of Entry Program at Queensboro College, which helps Chinese students learn American customs and practices. Mrs. Fordyce's husband, A. Grant Fordyce, an architect, whom she married in 1939, died in 1972. She is survived by her sister, Mary Lasker of Manhattan and Greenwich, Conn.; her son, James of Greenwhich, and three grandsons." Her son, James Woodard Fordyce, said she died of heart failure. (Alice Fordyce, Benefactor, 86; Aided Medicine. By Lee A. Daniels. New York Times, Sep. 11, 1992.) She moved to New York in 1929, where she worked in public relations for Lord & Taylor and Rockefeller Center while it was under construction. (Manhattan Profile. Comnpiled by Sheila McKenna. Newsday (Combined editions). Long Island, N.Y.: Dec 14, 1987. pg. 33.)

"Lasker Officials Vow To Carry On In Tradition Established By Alice Fordyce," by Barbara Spector. The Scientist 1992 Oct 12;6(20):0. Fordyce was Mary Lasker's sister. She was executive vice president of the Lasker Foundation and director of the awards program until 1990. "When you went to her [New York] apartment, there were people from the media, people who were scientists, people who were philanthropists, people from foundations, people from other countries." In other words, it was a nexus of privilege and power.

Alice Fordyce of the Lasker Foundation, and Carl Bakal and Tom Rosenberg of Anna M. Rosenberg Associates attended the Council for the Advancement of Science Writing's first national press briefing on "Health Care For All," Jan. 18-20, 1971, with future American Health Foundation Trustee Edmund Pellegrino as a discussant. It was sponsored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. Participating or attending various other CASW events were Daniel Koshland Jr.and C.H. Li; Paul Kotin, Frank Rauscher, and Carl Sagan; Judge David Bazelon, Richard Perle, Harvey Brooks, Edward E. David, and Earl Ubell. The board chairman of the Carnegie Corporation of New York was Frederick Sheffield, a director of Liggett & Myers.

Allmon G. Fordyce's firm of Fordyce & Hamby Associates designed the Hollywood studios of the National Broadcasting Company (The Video Temples of Hollywood. By Florence Crowther. New York Times, Jul. 27, 1952); stores for Lord & Taylor in Philadelphia, New York City and Washington DC (Sixth Lord & Taylor Store. New York Times, May 7, 1954; Lord & Taylor Readies Its Sixth Suburban Store. New York Times, Feb. 24, 1956; Finishing Touches Put on Lord & Taylor Store. New York Times, Aug. 28, 1959); a plant for Fairchild Camera's Potentiometer Division (Ground Broken for New Plant. Los Angeles Times, Mar. 20, 1955); J.W. Robinson, Singer Sewing Machines, Armour & Co. and various federal government projects (Start Nears on Valley J.W. Robinson Store. Los Angeles Times, Jun. 12, 1960); a $600,000 skating rink and pool bequeathed by Albert D. Lasker's sister, Loula D. Lasker, who was a vice president of Hadassah (Million in Art Gifts Left By Miss Lasker. By Lawrence O'Kane. New York Times, Dec. 22, 1961), [which flooded at least four times during the worst drought in NYC history]; the Heart Institute of New York Medical College (Heart Institute to Be Built Here at 30 Million Cost. By Morris Kaplan. New York Times, Sep. 24, 1962); the James V. Forrestal Building for the U.S. Deaprtment of Defense [now the headquarters of the Department of Energy] (President Releases Plan for Complex on Independence Ave. Washington Post, Times Herald, Jun. 16, 1965); the $12 million Institute for Basic Research in Mental Retardation (Research Begins at S.I. Center. New York Times, Mar. 24, 1968); a manufacturing facility for E.R. Squibb & Sons in New Brunswick, NJ (World Trade Center Is Still A Target. By Glenn Fowler. New York Times, Dec. 7, 1969). The firm moved from 70 West Fortieth St. to the Corning Glass Building, at 717 Fifth Avenue. (New York Times, May 29, 1961.) Fordyce graduated from the University of Illinois with a degree in architecture, and from Yale with a fine arts degree. (Allmon Fordyce, Architect, Dead. New York Times, Sep. 25, 1972.)

Robert J. Glaser

Glaser is the Lasker Syndicate connection to The Johns Hopkins University and the Minnesota tobacco trial - and probably a whole lot of other things that haven't been discovered yet. Alejandro Zaffaroni, the inventor of the nicotine patch, has business ties to Glaser.

James E. Hughes, Jr.

Past Secretary of the Lasker Foundation. He is the author of the book "Family Wealth: Keeping It in the Family," and numerous articles in the same vein. One of these is called "The Development of the Use of Trusts in the Cayman Islands for Private International Clients." He is the founder of the New York City law partnership Hughes and Whitaker, which specializes in private estates and trusts, and on the Board of the FOX [Family Office Exchange] Foundation; The Philanthropic Initiative; and various private trust companies, all dedicated to the same object. He was also a partner in the law firms of Coudert Brothers (1975-86), and Jones, Day, Reavis and Pogue (1986-94). The latter were at that time involved in the so-called defense of the tobacco industry.

The FOX Foundation: "Our background - The wealth of the world's high-net worth individuals rose six percent in 2000 to $27 trillion. In the United States today, five percent of the population controls 47 percent of the nation's wealth," which they regard as a good thing and strive to promote. And, in an article whose original attribution has unfortunately been lost: "I asked Hughes if there is a way a family can establish a 'family philanthropy' and end up with more money in their pockets than they would have had otherwise. 'Actually, there is a way,' he said. 'Let's say a client has an estate of $4 million to $5 million, and a million of that is in a tax-deferred retirement plan. That million will be taxed at the rate of 88 to 92 percent. If you use it to establish a family philanthropy, the rate drops to 15 percent. Now the law allows that family members may receive modest compensation for their work in a family foundation. In many cases the 'modest compensation' is larger than they'd receive as inheritance after taxes.'"

Lasker ally John D. Rockefeller 3rd is responsible for this aggrandizement of the wealthy at the expense of the people: "In the late 1960s Rockefeller undertook a major campaign to influence public policy on philanthropy, particularly private philanthropy, which he viewed as a unique social force that was indispensable to the continued success of the United States. Rockefeller became the leading spokesman on private philanthropy. He lobbied Congress for regulatory and tax laws under which the private giving could flourish. In his role as self-appointed caretaker of philanthropy, Rockefeller was responsible for the creation of the Commission on Foundations and Private Philanthropy and Public Needs (usually known as the Filer Commission)." (From John D. Rockefeller, 3rd, 1906-1978, at Rockefeller University.)

Bernard J. Reis

"On 3/25/54 the WFO submitted an affidavit dated 1/14/53 in which Bernard Joseph Reis explained or denied Communist front associations and specifically denied CP membership. In this statement Reis stated that he was Treasurer of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, Inc., on which Board, among others, was Gen. William J. Donovan" (Bureau memo, 4/2/54). Donovan was also a director of a corporation intending to manufacture equipment to remove smoke from the air.

Reis was executive director of the American Investors Union, a nonprofit membership organization, whose sponsors included Prof. Paul H. Douglas of the University of Chicago; Freda Kirchwey, editor of The Nation; and I.F. Stone. Its directors included Reis, George Seldes, and Colston E. Warne, president of the Consumers Union of the United States. (Form Investors Union. New York Times, Dec. 11, 1939.) Bernard J. Reis was the treasurer and a director of Consumers Union when it published a three-part report, "Cigarettes" (Consumer Reports, March 1957, Vol. 22, No. 3).

In 1943, Reis testified against executives of the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company in a $30-million stockholders' suit over bonuses. (Says Tobacco Men Got Big Bonuses. New York Times, Apr. 8, 1943.) Reis and Mary Lasker participated in a private art show benefit for Dr. Howard A. Rusk's Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation. (Medical Institute to Gain Nov. 13 From Art Tour. New York Times, Oct. 3, 1962.) In 1964, Reis was the treasurer of Freddy Homburger's Bio-Research Institute, Inc. Homberger testified at the Broin airliner ETS trial concerning the tobacco industry's supposed suppression of research.

Reis was an officer of Marlborough Galleries, founded by Francis Kenneth Lloyd, aka Franz Kurt Levai in London. Marlborough operated a branch in tax-haven Liechtenstein, "funneling money into Swiss banks." "Lloyd's first contact in New York was a power broker who among other things arranged him a dinner with accountant Bernard J. Reis and three of his painter clients," including Mark Rothko. "To protect him from the tax man, Reis is said to have provided Rothko with two numbered Swiss acounts, which have not surfaced to this day. Reis also became an officer of Marlborough, while continuing to represent his clients' interests." Rothko's heirs brought a lawsuit charging that Reis sold his paintings for too low a price. (Expose of the Art World's Own Little Watergate. By Michael Newman. Review of The Legacy of Mark Rothko, by Lee Seldes. Los Angeles Times, Jun. 4, 1978.) Mary Lasker was one of Marlborough Galleries' major clients. (The Man the Art World Loves to Hate. New York Times, Jun. 15, 1975.) Reis purportedly died in bankruptcy in 1978. (The IRS vs. The Rothko Executors. By Ann Swardson. The Washington Post, Jan. 26, 1987.)

Edwin C. Whitehead

Whitehead was a director of the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation in 1990. "The Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, which was established in 1942, has assets of about $2.4 million, down from about $4.5 million in 1980. It has spent up to $750,000 in each of the last few years, mainly to administer the awards, including the cost of an awards luncheon for 200 to 300 people at a New York City hotel. It did make a special grant of $813,000 to the Biomedical Research Foundation in Houston in 1988," of which Foundation director Dr. Jordan U. Gutterman of M.D. Anderson was president. '''To some extent it [the Lasker Award] has been a screening process for the Nobels in medicine,'' said Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, the Houston heart surgeon who has long headed the Lasker awards jury." (Lasker Foundation Suspends Its Awards. By Lawrence K. Altman. New York Times, Feb. 20, 1990.) His son, John Whitehead, founded the Campaign for Medical Research, a registered lobbying group, which started the "movement" among Republican Senators to double the budget of the National Institutes of Health between 1998 and 2003.

Mary Woodard Lasker

The Mary Lasker Papers Collection at Columbia University

The Mary Lasker Papers. Profiles in Science, National Library of Medicine.

Mary Woodard Lasker had ties to huckster Edward Bernays in the 1930s.

The Laskers were major donors to the birth control movement, and Mary Woodard Lasker was an official of the Birth Control Federation of America and its successor, Planned Parenthood Foundation of America. Clarence Cook Little, who was later the director of the Tobacco Industry Research Council, was among the wealthy and powerful members.

In 1940, Leonard and Isabelle Goldenson of ABC-TV worked with Mary Lasker, Anna Rosenberg and Florence Mahoney to help establish the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, part of the National Institutes of Health.

Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York

In 1944, the Lasker Foundation provided $25,000 to underwrite the establishment of the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York. The New York Foundation pledged $150,000 of its approximately $200,000 funding. "The following list of directors was made public by the Mayor [La Guardia]: Mr. [Winthrop] Aldrich, Dr. Alfred Angrist, Dr. George Baehr, Dr. E.M. Bluestone, John S. Burke, Dr. A.J. Curran, Neva R. Deardorff, David M. Heyman, Henry J. Kaiser, Constance Kyle, Mary W. Lasker, Mayor La Guardia, George Z. Medalie, Mr. [Saul] Mills, Thomas Murtha, Dr. Tracy J. Putnam, Gordon S. Rentschler, Dr. [Willard C.] Rappleye, Beardsley Ruml, Mr. [William] Reid [City Collector], Gerard Swope, Dr. Philip D. Eilson, Dr. [John J.] Wittmer and Mr. [Matthew A.] Woll. The Mayor disclosed that the late Wendell Willkie was named as a director in the plan's certificate of incorporation." Mills, Wittmer, Woll, and Winthrop Aldrich were chosen temporary vice presidents. (Mayor Sees 1,500,000 Subscribers To City Health Plan in Three Years. New York Times, Oct. 20, 1944, pg 21.) As long as health care has been collectivized, they do not care how it is done.

In 1946, Mary Woodard Lasker was a sponsor of the New York Heart Association fund raising campaign. Other sponsors included Mrs. William Randolph Hearst, Sr.; James S. Adams; Harold L. Bache, the nephew of Jules S. Bache; Leona Baumgartner; W. Averell Harriman; Devereux C. Josephs; Ralph T. Reed; Frank Stanton; and Thomas J. Watson Sr. Hugh Cullman and Emerson Foote were chairmen of Commerce and Industry committees. (Display Ad 46. New York Times, Jan. 31, 1946 p. 12.) Mary Lasker and the Lasker Foundation funded research on heart disease and blood lipids, and took over the Framingham Heart Study.

In 1947, Mary Lasker mailed a draft copy of her bill to set aside $100 million for heart disease research to her allies in Congress. "In a remarkably short time," says historian Steven Strickland, "the Senate and House enacted the measure designed, its sponsors said, to conquer what had become the nation's number one killer, heart disease. On June 16, 1948, President Truman signed the measure into law; straightaway, Surgeon General Scheele appointed Mrs. Lasker as the first layman to serve on a medical research advisory council."

Trustees of the Health Insurance Plan of New York in 1948: Re-elected, David M. Heyman, president, Dr. Willard C. Rappleye, chairman of the board; Saul Mills, Gerard Swope, and Matthew Woll, vice presidents; William Reid, controller; Mrs. Albert D. Lasker, secretary; and Albert Pleydell, general manager of the plan; Dr. Alfred Angrist, Dr. E.M. Bluestone, Dr. Jean A. Curran, and James C. Quinn. Deputy Mayor John J. Bennett, W. Randolph Burgess, John A. Coleman and Howard Vultee were newly elected. Dr. Dean A. Clark was medical director.(Health Plan Pays $2,373,938 in Year. New York Times, May 19, 1948.) Coleman was elected a director of Tobacco & Allied Stocks in 1953, which took over Philip Morris with the Cullmans in 1954. Mary W. Lasker's stepson, Edward Lasker, was a director of Philip Morris from 1961 to 1981.

Mary Lasker was a member of the Board of Hospitals, which had been newly created by New York City Mayor O'Dwyer in 1950. Other members included Dr. Edward M. Bernecker, administrator for New York University-Bellevue Medical Center; Dr. Thomas M. Rivers of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research; Dr. Willard C. Rappleye, Dean of Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons; Dr. Stanhope Bayne-Jones (Skull & Bones 1910), president of the joint administrative board of the New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center; Dr. George Baehr, president and medical director of the Health Insurance Plan of Greater New York; David M. Heyman, president of the New York Foundation; John A. Coleman, partner of Adler, Coleman & Co. and former president of the New York Stock Exchange; Winthrop Rockefeller, chairman of the board of trustees of New York University-Bellevue Medical Center; and Alfred P. Sloan Jr., chairman of the board of trustees of the Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research. (Hospitals Board Named by Mayor. New York Times, Aug. 11, 1950, pg. 20.)

Draft of announcement for Surgeon General Leonard Scheele announcement of Mary W. Lasker's appointment to the National Advisory Cancer Council of the National Cancer Institute in 1954. (Department of Health, Education, and Welfare Press Release, Sep. ?, 1954.) She was a member from 1957-58 and 1962-66. ([Members of the President's Cancer Panel, 1976, and National Advisory Cancer Council, 1957-71] J Natl Cancer Inst 1977 Aug;59(2suppl):763.)

In 1956, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation, Inc., along with George Gund, the George Gund Foundation, and David M. Levy, funded the James Stevens Simmons Memorial Fund at the Harvard School of Public Health. Simmons was the Dean of the Harvard School of Public Health from 1946 to his death in 1954. From 1940 to 1946, he was a founder of the Armed Forces Epidemiological Board, with then-Col. Stanhope Bayne-Jones - who later oversaw the 1964 Surgeon General Report on Smoking and Health - as his executive assistant. (Gifts to Harvard, January 1 to March 31, 1956. Nathan Marsh Pusey.)

Mary W. Lasker was a member of the National Advisory Cancer Council from 1957-58 and 1962 -66. ([Members of the President's Cancer Panel, 1976, and National Advisory Cancer Council, 1957-71] J Natl Cancer Inst 1977 Aug;59(2suppl):763.)

New York City Health Research Council

In 1958, Mrs. Mary Lasker was a member of New York City Mayor Wagner's new Health Research Council. Other members included James S. Adams of Lazard Freres & Co.; Dr. Leona Baumgartner, Commissioner, Department of Health; Devereux C. Josephs, chairman of the board of the New York Life Insurance Company and a director of the Morgan Guaranty Trust; Dr. Mervin J. Kelly, president of Bell Telephone Laboratories; Dr. Robert K. Merton, Professor of Sociology at Columbia University; Gerard Piel, publisher of Scientific American; Anna M. Rosenberg, public and industrial relations consultant, Anna M. Rosenberg Associates (who married Paul G. Hoffman a few years later); Dr. Warren Weaver, vice president of the Rockefeller Foundation; and Bethuel M. Webster, counsel to the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company. (New City Research Agency To Finance Health Studies. By Peter Kihss. New York Times, Sep. 17, 1958 p. 1; Members of Health Council. New York Times, Sep. 17, 1958 p. 22.)

Mayor Wagner's commission on health costs: David M. Heyman, chairman (retired in 1947 from Lewisohn & Co., investment bankers); Henry C. Brunie, president of the Empire Trust Company and Dr. Howard Rusk, vice chairmen; Dr. George E. Armstrong, director, N.Y.U. Bellevue Medical Center; Dr. George Baehr, past president, New York Academy of Medicine; Health Commissioner Leona Baumgartner; Budget Director Abraham D. Beame; Dr. Norton S. Brown, President, New York County Medical Society; John S. Burke, president, B. Altman & Co.; Edward F. Butler, Director, St. John's Hospital, Brooklyn; Dr. Martin Cherkasky, director, Montefiore Hospital; John A. Coleman, financier; Dr. Maurice Costello, chief of dermatology, St. Clare's and Misercordia Hospitals; The Rev. James H. Fitzpatrick, associate director of Catholic Hospitals, Brooklyn; Dr. John J. Flynn, former president, Kings County Medical Society; Msgr. Patrick J. Frawley, director, Health and Hospital, Catholic Charities, Archdiocese of New York; James Felt, chairman, City Planning Commission; Henry J. Friendly, vice president and general counsel, Pan American World Airways; Albert J. Hettinger Jr., partner, Lazard Freres & Company; Mrs. Harry G. Hill, member, New York City Youth Board; Dr. Frank L. Horsfall Jr., vice president and physician in chief, Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research; Hospital Commissioner Morris A. Jacobs; Francis Kernan, president, the New York Hospital; Dr. Grayson Kirk, president, Columbia University; Mrs. Albert D. Lasker, president, Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation; Welfare Commissioner Henry L. McCarthy; Mrs. John J. McCloy; Dr. Peter Marshall Murray, chairman, coordinating committee, Five County Medical Societies; City Administrator Charles F. Preusse; Miss Marian Randall, former executive director, Visiting Nurse Service of New York; Raymond H. Reiss, chairman of the board, St. Vincent's Hospital; Victor S. Riesenfeld, president, Montefiore Hospital; Alfred L. Rose, former president, Mount Sinai Hospital; Thomas J. Ross, president, Hospital Council of Greater New York; Howard C. Shepard, chairman of the board, First National City Bank of New York; Dr. Harvey J. Tompkins, chairman, Community Mental Health Board; Harry Van Arsdale Jr., president, New York Central Labor Council; George D. Woods, chairman of the board, First Boston Corporation. (City Orders Survey of Hospital Costs. By Edith Evans Asbury. New York Times, Feb. 13, 1959.)

Mary Woodard Lasker had close connections to President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Mary Lasker obituaries

"Dr. Samuel Broder, director of the National Cancer Institute, said Mrs. Lasker did more than any other individual to promote medical research in the United States. 'In effect, the most powerful members of Congress in her era simply knew that when Mary Lasker came and needed to have something done they had to give her what she wanted because she was always right,' Broder said." (Mary Lasker, 93, force behind cancer research. St. Petersburg Times. Feb. 24, 1994.) The immense government health establishment which ballooned after World World War II grew out of a note from Mary Woodard Lasker to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and falsely attributed to him.

She graduated from Radcliffe in 1923 and studied briefly at Oxford University. She married Paul Reinhardt, the owner of Reinhardt Galleries, in 1926, and they were divorced in 1934. She also served on the boards of directors of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the Museum of Modern Art, the Norton Simon Museum, New York University, and Braniff Airways. (Mary W. Lasker, Philanthropist for Medical Research, Dies At 93. By Eric Pace. New York Times, Feb. 23, 1994.) She left more than $10 million to the Mary Woodard Lasker Charitable Trust. (Philanthropist Leaves $10 Million for Charities. New York Times, Mar. 27, 1994.)

Mrs. Albert D. Lasker was co-vice president with Sir Richard Doll of the "Fourth International Symposium on Cancer Detection and Prevention," July 26-31, 1980, sponsored by the International Society for Preventive Oncology, Inc. and the Royal Society of Medicine. (In: Cancer Detection and Prevention 1980;3(1), Special Issue.)

Biomedical researchers mourn the loss of an advocate, by Barbara Spector. The Scientist 1994 Mar 21;8(6):3. Terry Lierman of Washington D.C.-based Capitol Associates, a government relations firm hired by Lasker, said that "the very fact that Lasker was the client opened doors in Washington: 'Just by having Mary either with you or [being] associated with her cause helped.'" In 1980, she lined up a $6 million contributor for Stanford University's Beckman Center.

Mary Lasker's Family Ties to Homeopathy, Progressive politicians and the Education Establishment

Mary Lasker's family was politically connected. Her grandfather, Marshall John Woodard, was a partner of Jesse Stone in the Woodard & Stone Bakery of Watertown, Wis. He became a director of the Bank of Watertown in 1883, and retired as a vice president in 1910. He was a Congregationalist. (Marshall John Woodard 1830-1924. Watertown History.) Her father, Frank E. Woodard, was later an officer of the bank. (Bank of Watertown. Watertown History.) Stone was born in Lincolnshire, England and immigrated to Watertown in 1869. In 1898 he was elected lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, re-elected in 1900, and served from Jan., 1899, until his death. (Stone, Jesse 1836-1902. Wisconsin Historical Society.) He served under two Governors, Edward Scofield and Robert M. LaFollette Sr., the celebrated Progressive politician.

Her father, Frank E. Woodard, was secretary and treasurer of Woodard & Stone when her parents were married at the home of her father's cousin, Dr. C.G. Fellows, in Chicago. Frank E. Woodard had served three terms in the Common council. Assemblyman and Mrs. Jesse Stone were among the guests. (Many attend the Johnson-Woodard Wedding At Chicago. Milwaukee Sentinel, Mar. 14, 1897.) Her mother, Sara T. Johnson, was a native of Ireland. Dr. C. Gurnee Fellows was a Chicago homeopath who married Angie Woodard (who went by the name Woodward). (Midlent Social Events. Chicago Daily Tribune Mar. 15, 1897 p. 7; Deaths [Daniel J. Woodard]. Chicago Daily Tribune, Sep. 14, 1898 p. 5; US Census, 1870, Watertown, Wis.; Specialist Dies [C.G. Fellows]. Chicago Daily Tribune, Feb. 3, 1929; Mrs. C.G. Fellows. New York Times, Mar. 30, 1954.) Angie's brother, Herbert B. Woodard, was also a homeopath. (Dr. Herbert B. Woodard Dies After Long Illness. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 26, 1936.) Dr. C. Gurnee Fellows was president of the Chicago Homeopathic Medical Society in 1908. (Dr. W.A. Evans Upholds Right of Compulsory Vaccination. Chicago Daily Tribune, Apr. 17, 1908.) Prof. Royal S. Copeland of the University of Michigan, the president of the American Institute of Homeopathy, proclaimed at their convention that "Outdoor air is the thing people need," and that "The body will care for all the germs and diseases. If the people will stop taking something every time they feel sick, in five years they will be sleeping on porches winter and summer, enjoying good health." (Urges Outdoor Air For Cure of Ills, Instead of Drugs. Chicago Daily Tribune, May 15, 1908 p. 8.) Copeland was later the U.S. Senator who introduced the legislation establishing the National Cancer Institute. (Senate Votes For $1,450,000 Cancer Center. Washington Post, Jul. 23, 1937.) Mrs. Copeland was a patroness of the Flower Homeopathic Hospital in New York City, along with Mrs. Webster B. Todd, the mother of former EPA Administrator Christine Todd Whitman.

The C.G. Fellows's son, Woodward, was a Yalie, and their daughter, Marguerite, married Percival Gray Hart of Detroit, Yale 1917, who was a lieutenant in the 135th aero squadron in the First World War. (Won By Hero. Chicago Daily Tribune, Sep. 27, 1920; Days News in Society. Chicago Daily Tribune, Jul. 2, 1924.) Woodward Fellows was best man for his cousin, Donald Emory Fellows, the son of Prof. Donald Fellows of the University of Wisconsin. They were grandsons of George Emory Fellows, former president of the University of Maine. (Suzanne Phillips Greenwich Bride. New York Times, Aug. 1, 1948.) George Emory Fellows was professor of history at Indiana University from 1891-95; then, an assistant professor at the University of Chicago for seven years, until becoming president of the University of Maine in 1902. In 1899, he contributed to "The Times Home Study Circle," series, "Popular Studies in European History," directed by Prof. Seymour Eaton. (Display Ad 9. Los Angeles Times, Oct. 14, 1899; [Feudalism] May 4, 1899 p. 7; [The Hanseatic League] Jun. 8, 1899 p. 7.) He resigned his post at the University of Maine after the students went on strike against his rules, and the senior class threatened to walk out if he preached the bacchalaureate sermon. (President Fellows Resigns. New York Times, Jan. 8, 1910.) He moved on to the presidency of Millikin University, and then to the University of Utah from 1915-35. (George E. Fellows, Educator, Was 83. New York Times, Jan. 15, 1942.)

Mary's mother and cousin Angie moved to New York City after the deaths of their respective husbands, and Mary, her sister Alice, her mother, and cousin Angie were all active in the Public Education Association, a progressive education advocacy group; also, Mrs. Artemus L. Gates (Skull & Bones, 1918). (Reception Will Be Held March 22 For Opening of Degas Exhibition. Mrs. Samuel A. Lewisohn and Mrs. J. Culbert Palmer Jr. Head Group in Charge of the Arrangements -- Art Show Will Benefit the Public Education Association. New York Times Mar. 7, 1937, p.85.) Supporters of a 1953 art exhibition benefit for the Public Education Association included Mrs. Thomas S. Lamont, Mrs. Eustace J. Seligman, Mrs. Ernest Angell, Mrs. Albert D. Lasker, Mrs. Maurice T. Moore (of Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Henry Luce's brother-in-law), Mrs. Henry H. Villard, Mrs. Herbert H. Lehman, Mrs. E. Roland Harriman, Mrs. Artemus L. Gates, and Mrs. Frank Altschul. (Many Parties Will Mark Preview Tonight Of Art Benefit for Public Education Body. New York Times, March 17, 1953.) Bethuel M. Webster Jr., counsel to the Liggett & Myers Tobacco Company, had been a member of the board of trustees for twelve years when he was elected chairman in 1954.

Her mother "had a passion about smoke control; it was she who led a crusade in New York City forcing the utility and other companies to install smoke consumers in their chimneys, in order to abate the dirt caused by factory smoke. Robert Moses, the Commissioner of Parks, was one of her heroes." (From: Taken at the Flood. The Story of Albert D. Lasker, by John Gunther. Harper & Brothers, 1960.) She was a member of the board of directors of the Outdoor Cleanliness Association of New York, where she moved after her husband died in 1933. Before her marriage, she had been a fashion expert for the Carson, Pirie, Scott & Co. department stores, and in the 1880s went to Paris as a buyer. (Mrs. Frank Woodard, Long A Civic Leader. Former Fashion Expert Was a Cleanliness Group Director. New York Times, Jan. 10, 1940.) Undoubtably, she was the original inspiration behind today's frenzied crusade against the slightest trace of particulates. Due to the Lasker Syndicate's complete control of funding and lack of accountability to the taxpayers, it is irrational dogmatism dressed up with elaborate pseudo-science. Expensive equipment quantifies minute concentrations, computers perform fast-fourier transformations to smooth out the signal from the noise, and multivariate statistical analyses ae performed to supposedly "adjust" for confounding, while actually exploiting it; when all the time the really major causes of cancer and heart and lung disease are infectious.

Mary Lasker's Neighborhood

In 1940, Albert and Mary Lasker rented 29 Beekman Place from William Paley of CBS. "Intimates in the Lasker circle were, of course, John Golden, [William J.] Donovan, [David] Sarnoff, the Bernard Gimbels, the Andre Meyers, and Mrs. Rosenberg [Anna Rosenberg Hoffman]. Other friendships proliferated. The names roll out -- it is impossible to list more than a few -- Jean and Robert Kintner (he presently became head of the American Broadcasting Company and then of NBC); the Gilbert Millers; the late Seymour Berkson, chief of International News Service and later publisher of the New York Journal American, and his wife Eleanor Lambert, the fashion expert; the movie star Irene Dunne and her husband, Dr. Griffin; George M. Schlee and Valentina, the dress designer; John T. Cahill, who had resumed private practice and was now Albert's lawyer; Dorothy Draper, the interior decorator; Mary's intimate and highly valued friend, Florence Mahoney; Senator Murray of Montana; Margaret Sanger; Kay Swift; James Monahan and Lois Mattox Miller of Reader's Digest; James S. Adams of Lazard Freres; Gerald Van Der Kemp, curator of the palace at Versailles; Leonard Lyons, who appointed Lasker to a unique post, that of being great-godfather to his four sons; Greta Garbo; the Samuel Goldwyns; Dr. Alfred Frankfurter, editor and publisher of Art News; Sir Charles and Lady Mendl; Margaret Truman, whom the Laskers first met through Lyons; and many others. Later in the decade Albert met Barbara Ward (Lady Jackson), the British writer-editor-economist, and admired her greatly. Two other estimable ladies, quite different from one another, should be mentioned with a bow. One was the Hon. Mrs. Audrey Pleydell-Bouverie, one of the most romantically fascinating beauties of this or any day, who was (and is) a close friend of Queen Elizabeth -- now the Queen Mother. The other was Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt." (From Taken at the Flood. The Story of Albert D. Lasker. By John Gunther. Harper & Brothers, 1960.)

"Turtle Bay, a microcosm of New York City, contains all sorts of buildings from tenements to luxury coops and condos, as well as elegant brownstones.... Beekman Place between 51st and 50th Streets, and including East 50th Street running one block west from Beekman Place, is known as the Beekman Place District. The streets were formerly cobblestones and the area consists largely of luxury town houses, each with its own character.... This area was home to many celebrities including Ethel Barrymore, Katherine Cornell, Alfred Lunt and Lynne Fontanne, Irving Berlin, Huntington Hartford, members of the Rockefeller family, and former Secretary of Defense James Forrestal." (Turtle Bay: A Touch of Class, by Claudette and Bob Blumenson. Turtle Bay Newsletter Mar 2, 2000.) John D. Rockefeller 3rd lived at One Beekman Place. Mary Lasker's address in the 1970s was still 29 Beekman Place.

In the 1950s, the Albert and Mary Lasker Foundation was located in the Chrysler Building in New York City. (Five Judges Picked for Lasker Awards. New York Times, Feb. 1, 1957.) Later, it moved to 870 United Nations Plaza, a dual-use building which had 7-foot tall, 18-foot long windows in the living rooms. "But what really gives United Nations Plaza its cachet is its tenants. A more impressive bunch under two roofs would be hard to find... What is filling United Nations Plaza, especially the East tower, is a sort of power elite... Of the 71 percent that quietly make the wheels go 'round, 69 percent are senior vice presidents, executive vice presidents, presidents or chairmen of the board. In big business they include John Dickson Harper, president of Alcoa, the company that put up the building; William H. Johnstone, chairman of the finance committee of Bethlehem Steel; Chester W. Laing, president of John Nuveen & Co., investment bankers, and Lowell P. Weicker, president of Bigelow-Sanford, Inc. In publishing, they are Roy Larsen, chairman of the executive committee of Time, Inc.; Andrew Heiskell, chairman of the board of Time, Inc., and Mrs. Philip (Katherine) Graham, publisher of the Washington Post and president of Newsweek magazine. The 9 percent of the tenants who are lawyers include Christian A. Herter Jr., whose father was Secretary of State, and William Pierce Rogers, who was Attorney General under Eisenhower." 8 percent of the 167 tenants were "persons of independent means." The 6 percent affiliated with government or foundations included Robert F. Kennedy. The Lasker digs were in 22 rooms in 3½ apartments on the 10th and 11th floors, with Mary's sister and brother-in-law occupying the upper floor, while the foundation was to have its offices on one of the first six floors. (Home - Up to $166,000 - Sweet Home. By Virginia Lee Warren. New York Times, Feb. 16, 1966.) "Two of the most prestigious addresses in the area are 860 and 870 United Nations Plaza, on 49th Street, where many co-ops have views of the United Nations, Beekman Place and the East River. Originally these twin 1966 buildings were planned to be the I.B.M. World Trade Center. At 860 U.N. Plaza, a 1,400-square-foot three-bedroom, five-and-a-half bath co-op is on the market for $1.995 million with a monthly maintenance of $3,800, said Roberta Kaye, a broker with the Halstead Property Company." (The Turtle Bay Neighborhood: In U.N.'s Shadow, Elegance, Convenience. Enclave's activists are battling Trump on his 72-story tower. By Peter Malbin, The New York Times.) As of Jan. 2002, Sotheby International Realty has a 7, 4, 2,700 sq ft for $2,600,000 at 870 United Nations Plaza.

cast 03-15-08