Medicine: Campaigner

"One out of every eight Americans dies of cancer . . . one out of every three Americans dies of diseases of the heart and blood vessels . . ."

Nine out of ten Americans who have read these and other shock-slogans of fund-raising campaigns have felt the desired shiver. The tenth, who did not, was Albert Deutsch. Mr. Deutsch, who writes a medical and social welfare column in the New York Star, finally felt annoyed. Wrote Deutsch last week: "When the whole grim truth is told, one out of every one of us dies. Period. I am disturbed by the sustained note of terror in the slogans constantly tossed at us by worthy health organizations in efforts to pry loose . . . enough dollars to fight effectively some particular disease."

Deutsch's column was read by people involved in fundraising. Said one: "Hmmm. We can't keep on killing people forever." It is likely that some changes will be made. For Columnist Deutsch, who never studied medicine, is nevertheless a power in U.S. medical journalism. In 1945, when he launched a one-man attack on the medical setup of the Veterans Administration, he almost went to jail. He refused to name his news sources for a series of 50 articles (13 of them containing constructive suggestions, a fair Deutsch percentage) and was voted in contempt of Congress by the House Veterans Committee. But the committee backed down and Deutsch saw many of his suggestions adopted when General Omar Bradley took over the Veterans Administration.

Says Deutsch: "I'm not a crusader. I'm just against evil things that don't have to be." Among them: racial bias, maltreatment of juvenile delinquents and the insane. In 1943 a story he never printed — but showed to the War Department for security clearance — ended the barbarous expedient of bringing some psychoneurotic veterans home from overseas in wire cages.

He campaigns steadily for compulsory national health insurance — which has led to frequent battles with economically orthodox medical thinkers and famed verbal brawls with Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Deutsch agrees with the A.M.A.'s scientific activities, cooperates with the association in exposing fake drugs and quacks, but he delights in the fact that a cancer-cure artist whom both had exposed sued the A.M. A. for only $250,000, Deutsch for $1,000,000.