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Show O'Connor Says Polio Victory Still in Future Polia patients of the nation would be in a dangerous position posi-tion if many peaple had the erroneous ide.a that paralytic polio is licked at a time when the current March of Dimes is desperately in need of funds, Basil O'Connor said today. The danger to polio patients has been enhanced, he said, by an unfortunate misinterpretation misinterpreta-tion of his remarks published on the occasion of a birthday interview early last week, in which he discussed what the National Foundation might do when the polio problem actually actu-ally had been reduced to a minimum. 'Some people apparently thought that our looking ahead to the future had a direct bearing bear-ing on the present," the March of Dimes leader declared, "but, as a matter tof fact, there can be no future until the problems prob-lems of the present have been met. "Like any organization dedicated dedi-cated to the public interest, we have been discussing and investigating in-vestigating possible courses of future action in serving the American people, for we know that some day polio will be conquered, now that we have a preventive vaccine. "But to view this as an indication indi-cation that our original goal already has been achieved is a distortion of facts, at a time when our obligation to at least 80,000 old polio patients is most presesing." Scientific rosearch for improved im-proved treatment, rehabilitation rehabilita-tion and polio vaccines, as well as professional education to train urgently needed physicians, physi-cians, therapists and other medical med-ical experts and care of new patients pa-tients this year, all depend upon continued public support of the 1957 March of Dimes, Mr. O'Connor said. |