Home > About Fogarty > Fogarty tribute transcript

Transcript for the Fogarty Tribute Video

Newscaster from archival clip

"John Edward Fogarty...by your tireless energy, your determined efforts, and your contagious conviction that a better world is within our grasp. As education has improved, disease conquered and poverty eliminated, you have made a contribution to the improvement of man's lot, for which present and future generations will bless your name."

Narration

Decades before phrases like "globalization" and "multiculturalism" became commonplace, Congressman John Edward Fogarty recognized that the nations of the world comprise one planet and one family of humanity.

Narration

Well ahead of his time, Fogarty also argued that large-scale medical research efforts would improve the health of the workforce and spur economic growth. In so doing, he sparked the eventual creation of the National Institutes of Health’s John E. Fogarty International Center.

Narration

Over the course of his 27-year career in the House, John Fogarty was an outspoken advocate for NIH and for the value of medical research.

NIH construction footage with audio

"New construction down to the left there..."

During his tenure as Chair of the Appropriations Subcommittee with responsibility for health funding, the budget for NIH grew from 37 million dollars in 1949 to well over one billion dollars in 1967, the year of his untimely death.

Narration

John Fogarty died at his desk of a heart attack on January 10, 1967, the day before the opening of Congress.

Narration

Since then, the Fogarty International Center has assumed a prominent place in the global health community, funding research and building sustainable research capacity at home and abroad. Its annual budget has grown from a modest 500,000 dollars to its current level of 67 million, which support the vital work of some 5,000 scientists in more than 100 countries.

Forty years after John Fogarty's death, the center bearing his name continues to advance global health science, with the aim of improving the health and extending the lives of ALL people.