ABSTRACT
IN MAY 1948 Sister Elizabeth Kenny went to Washington, D.C., to speak as an expert witness before the House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce. Wearing a corsage and plumed hat, the white-haired Australian nurse praised a proposed National Medical Research Foundation that would study polio as well as cancer and other “degenerative” diseases. “Mobilization of forces and pooling of knowledge concerning this disease are imperative,” Kenny told the committee, which was investigating whether the government should fund and direct medical research. Although Kenny admitted she had been advised “not to interfere in any way with American politics,” she nonetheless was certain that “the Federal government, by appropriation, should support both…clinical and scientific research” and “should undertake to see that every avenue is explored to wipe out this disease.”1
