Mary Woodard Lasker (November 30, 1900 – February 21, 1994) was an American health activist. She worked to raise funds for medical research, and founded the Lasker Foundation.
Born in Watertown, Wisconsin, Lasker attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison and graduated from Radcliffe College.[1]
In 1938 she became the president of the Birth Control Federation of America, the precursor of the Planned Parenthood Federation.[2]
She was married to Lord and Thomas advertising executive Albert Lasker (her second marriage, his third ) until his death in the early 1950s of cancer.[3] Together, they were the first to apply the power of modern advertising and promotion to fighting cancer. They joined the American Society for the Control of Cancer which at the time was sleepy and ineffectual and transformed it into the American Cancer Society. The Laskers ousted the board of directors. Afterwards, they raised then record amounts of money and directed much of it to research. The American Cancer Society also fought lung cancer through prevention via anti-smoking campaigns. Using TV equal-time provisions, they were able to counter cigarette advertising with their own message.[4] The messages were effective enough that the tobacco companies voluntarily stopped advertising on TV to prevent their broadcast. Lasker was also instrumental in getting the US government to fund the War on Cancer in 1971. [5] Ironically, her husband's ad agency had promoted smoking with the slogan, "L.S.M.F.T.—Lucky Strike Means Fine Tobacco" [6] back when the dangers of smoking were not well known. [3]
Lady Bird Johnson wrote about Lasker numerous times in her book A White House Diary, calling her house "charming ... like a setting for jewels" and thanking her for gifts of daffodil bulbs for parkways along the Potomac River and for thousands of azalea bushes, flowering dogwood and other plants to put along Pennsylvania Avenue.
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Mary Lasker is a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969, the Four Freedoms Award 1987 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 1989.[7] The Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service was renamed in her honour in 2000. On May 14, 2009 the United States Postal Service honored Lasker with the issuance of a stamp of face value 78 cents, designed by Mark Summers. The stamp was released, in part, as recognition of a renewed US government commitment to funding of biomedical research. A release ceremony was held in Lasker's hometown on May 15, 2009.[8]