Decision Making in the Biological Field

DECISION MAKING IN THE BIOLOGICAL FIELD* JEAN MAYER1 It is with particular gratitude that I approach the Atwater Lecture. Gratitude in that I feel honored that my life work as a scientist has been judged by a major research agency of our government deserving to share the honor of this unique lectureship with my three illustrious predecessors. Gratitude that I have been given so large a forum and so distinguished an audience. And gratitude that the medal and lectureship are named after W. O. Atwater, who has always been a very special hero of mine. I inherited from my father a small but distinguished collection in the history of physiology and nutrition, and my means have enabled me to add to it only very little—an early Harvey, Haller's original Elements of Physiology, volumes 6 and 7, which deal with hunger and digestion, and the original work of W. O. Atwater. I have revered Atwater not only because he was the first American nutritionist—and I can think of no science to which U.S. scientists have contributed as massive a proportion of our knowledge as nutrition—but because he was to my mind a complete nutritionist . He was a careful experimentalist and a theoretician who in the laboratory established, on a precise quantitative basis, the calorimetry of nutrition in man. He was also committed to the betterment of the lot of mankind through science—one of his aims was to determine the most inexpensive method of providing a healthful diet for all Americans and, in particular, for the very poor. His work on human nutrition in agricultural experimental stations established, in the Department of Agriculture, a tradition of service to the consumer which is one of the glories of this unique American institution. As a laboratory man who has also conducted many experimental studies on man and been engaged on several continents * The 1971 W. O. Atwater Memorial Lecture, sponsored by the Agricultural Research Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture in cooperation with the American Institute of Biological Sciences at the Second National Biological Congress, Miami Beach, Florida, October 24, 1971. t Professor of nutrition, Harvard University School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115. 36 I Jean Mayer · Biological Decision Making in technical development of national nutritional policies, I have developed a special feeling of kinship with Atwater. I think he would have been pleased to see his department designated to take the lead in the national antihunger campaign. Much remains to be done, but we have seen outstanding progress in the past two years. Food programs now cover 14,000,000 poor Americans instead of 6,000,000 as in 1969—and cover them very much better. The food-stamp program has been made free for the very poor and provides $108 per family per month instead of $70; this particular program reaches close to 11,000,000 persons and is still expanding . An improved surplus-commodity program reaches 3,500,000 persons , most of whom will become eligible for food stamps as the program expands and replaces the less satisfactory commodity program . Seven and three-tenths million children from poor families now receive free school lunches instead of 3,500,000 two years ago. With the recent push from Congress, I hope that we shall reach the 8,000,000-9,000,000 children of poor families who need the program this year, and that many will also be reached by the expanding free breakfast program. All this means that, while there is still malnutrition due to poverty in the United States, the magnitude of the problem has been drastically reduced in the past two years. These recent developments show that we can make decisions in the biological field, and carry them through on a very large scale (even in a period of economic recession and budgetary restrictions), as long as we make the ethical choice clearly and the method of execution is well established and relatively simple. I Unfortunately, of course, most of our problems are more complicated than that of feeding the poor in a country which can produce greater and greater surpluses of food. Many decisions in the biological field...