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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Mary Lasker
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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Mary Lasker
MARY LASKER
Awarded by
President Lyndon B. Johnson
January 20, 1969
Humanist, philanthropist, activist--Mary Lasker has inspired understanding and productive legislation which improved the lot of mankind. In medical research, in adding grace and beauty to the environment, and in exhorting her fellow citizens to rally to the cause of progress, she has made a lasting imprint on the quality of life in this country. She has led her President and the Congress to greater heights for justice for her people and beauty for her land.
Biography
Medal of Freedom Recipients Dr. Michael DeBakey and Mary Lasker
As a patron and advocate, Mrs. Mary Lasker furthered medical research on cancer, heart, stroke and blindness. She also lent her support to beautification projects in New York and Washington. She was also a noted art collector.
In a 1958 speech, Robert Moses, then the Parks Commissioner, said Mrs. Lasker possessed "the irresistible combination Madison Avenue dreams of--the blend of many essences in the beautiful package."
Intelligence, vision, generosity, charm, kindness--Mary has them all," Moses continued.
Mrs. Lasker and her husband Albert Davis Lasker, a pioneer advertising executive who died in 1952, established the Lasker Foundation in 1942. In almost every year since 1944, it has honored outstanding discoveries in basic and clinical research and public service in support of the medical research enterprise.
The Foundation has boldly recognized brilliant new research, and the Lasker Awards are the most coveted honor in medical science.
Over the years, Mary Lasker served as chairman of the board of the American Cancer Society, a trustee of Research to Prevent Blindness and of the Cancer Research Institute and a director of the National Committee for Mental Hygiene.
"I am opposed to heart attacks and strokes," she used to say, "the way I am opposed to sin."
In addition, Mrs. Lasker advocated federal, state and city officials and legislators to provide more funds for medical research on major killing and crippling diseases. She worked to persuade Congress to increase appropriations for the National Institutes of Health and to set up additional research centers concentrating on specific diseases.
"Without money," she said in 1985, "nothing gets done." To get things done, she used to visit the White House (during Democratic Administrations, she added wryly). She also paid calls on Washington legislators, corresponded with Presidents and arranged for scientists to meet government leaders.
Despite her successes in furthering medical research, Mary Lasker used to contend that she lacked scientific and medical aptitude. "Nobody would have me in their laboratory for five minutes," she once said, with a smile. "I couldn’t cut up a frog, and I certainly couldn’t perform surgery. I’m better at making it possible for other people."
Her passionate interest in medicine was fueled partly by illnesses of people around her and by her concern for her own health; she repeatedly had ear infections during her childhood.
50% of Lasker Winners go on the win the Nobel Prize.
Over the years, the Lasker Foundation helped shape medical history by recognizing and supporting promising research, and it has repeatedly singled out future winners of the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Commenting on Mrs. Lasker's efforts, Dr. Michael DeBakey said in a 1985 interview: "Mary Lasker is an institution unto herself. Asking what her importance has been is like asking what Harvard has meant to this country."
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Medal History
