We are gathered here today just a short distance from the spot where Enrico Fermi and his team of scientists first split the atom — and, by so doing, inaugurated a new era in the history of mankind.
Their work has affected every phase of human life ... man’s method of waging warfare, his methods of combatting illnesses, his means of travel ... and his way, even, of lighting his homes and cooking his foods. Today we are embarked on a project which, while not as spectacular, may be equally revolutionary because here at the University of Chicago we are starting a new concept in the field of mental retardation research and treatment. The basic idea is this:
By combining the basic sciences of Genetics, Biology, Biochemistry, Virology, Psychology and others, with the clinical application of those sciences to social work, education, nursing, and even to the medical care of the patients themselves, we may be able to discover not only the causes of mental retardation, but also how to alleviate its consequences. Let me give you an example of what I mean.
Over 40 years ago, a famous Norwegian scientist, Dr. Ivar Foling, discovered the basic cause of a disease now known as phenylketonuria — a disease which causes mental retardation. But for 40 years little was done to prevent children from becoming the victims of phenylketonuria, or PKU as we now abbreviate it. Only within the last few years has another distinguished doctor, Dr. Guthrie, proved a means for early detection of PKU — a means of discovering PKU while a child is still 4, 6 or eight weeks old.
This discovery now makes it possible to correct PKU early in life merely by changing what the baby eats, and this it is now possible for previous victims of PKU to grow up into normal, healthy individuals. Thus it has taken 40 years for Dr. Foling’s basic scientific discovery about the nature of PKU to become translated into an effective clinical method of finding victims of PKU and taking care of their disease. That’s too long. That kind of tragic delay may be prevented in the future here at the University of Chicago by the combination of of the basic sciences research program to be undertaken in the Kennedy Laboratories and the clinical application of the basic sciences which are mentioned in the beginning of my talk. This close integration has never been attempted before at a major center of science, learning and treatment.
While the long arm of coincidence puts these two events — the splitting of the atom and the inauguration of this new service for the retarded — in interesting juxtaposition, coincidence certainly played no part in the decision by the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation to commit $2,200,000 to the University of Chicago for research in this field.
The University was selected on its record, its record for the services it has performed, for the research it has conducted, for its general all around excellence. It is a record that certainly is enhanced by the fact that 23 Nobel prize winners, an average of one for every three years of the university’s existence, have been associated with the University of Chicago.
The roll call is impressive ... names like those of Dr. Eugene Paul Wigner, Dr. Karl Ziegler, Maria Goeppert Mayer, Dr. Edward Lawrie Tatum, Dr. James Dewey Watsonia, and, of course, Dr. George Wells Beadle, the president of this great institution. I cannot fail to maintain also, the name of Dr. Samuel Kirk, who received a graduate degree from this university, and then in 1962 was one of the winners of the Annual International Awards of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Foundation for his work for over 30 years in the field of mental retardation.
Today other great scientists and teachers are certainly on this campus. We may not even know their names. Often what impresses people most on occasions such as this is the size of the grant or the commitment, and while it is true that this is the largest single grant made by the Kennedy Foundation, this is not the most significant point on this occasion.
Most important is the plan that the University of Chicago and the Kennedy Foundation have developed to make the maximum use of the money. Basically, the Foundation has done two things:
1. Has awarded $1,500,000 to the university for the establishment of the Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Mental Retardation Research Center within the new Children’s Hospital.
2. Has pledged $700,000 to the university to establish a new Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. Mental Retardation Clinical Services and Training Center. This $700,000 can attract an additional $2,000,000 from the Federal Government. Thus giving the University a new multi-million dollar center at no cost to the University.
On its part, the University has pledged its complete cooperation, and all of its human resources at every level and in every field. What will emerge is this:
The University of Chicago will be the first university to have a mental retardation clinical services structure and program based on the new federal money now available ... a program under which parents of retarded children can find all the services available for their youngsters at one location. In the language of suburbia, it will be the supermarket, the one-stop shopping center, for the parents looking for help for their retarded children.
But the University also will be making history in other respects. For one thing this will mark the first time that a clinic of this sort has been coordinated with a basic science center. Secondly, the university’s decision to establish a university-wide mental retardation committee with the university president as chairman, is an unprecedented step. And thirdly, the university has pledged itself to the establishment of special training programs to provide specialists for work with the retarded in the areas of psychology, social work, education and nursing. This also has never been done anywhere before.
The University also plans to utilize this mental retardation center as a focal point from which it will conduct research into the problems of the culturally deprived, thousands of whom live in areas not far from the main campus of this university. In all of these ways we believe the University of Chicago can become the leading center in America — if not in the world — in the field of mental retardation.
Chicago, then, will be a great beneficiary of this program ... but this whole world will too ... for what is learned here will be of great value to institutions in New York, Washington, New Orleans, Los Angeles ... to parents in those cities and in London, Paris, in Tokyo. Form the work here, parents everywhere may take some comfort; they may find their problems eased. And, perhaps most important of all, generations of parents yet to come may be spared the pronouncement that the child, on whom they had lavished so much hope is retarded.
It is indeed sad, that such a program as this has been neglected up till now ... that science while it has concerned itself with so many other fields, all of them important, of course, has nonetheless practically ignored the field of mental retardation, which afflicts six times as many people as does epilepsy, ten times as many as diabetes, twenty times as many as tuberculosis, twenty-five times as many as muscular dystrophy and six hundred times as many as polio.
But this is not a time to look back. It is time to look ahead. At this point my speech should come to an end. But instead of an end, I’m happy to say it will come to a climax. For more than a dozen years one person, in my judgment, has been a leading spirit in America in encouraging and directing action against mental retardation. I have been privileged to work closely with her, and we are lucky to have her here with us today.
Ladies and Gentlemen, it’s my pleasure to introduce to you the person who inspiration has made the entire Kennedy Foundation program against mental retardation possible — my wife, Eunice Shriver.
