Who's Planning What?

At Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria last week, 750 physicians, medical scientists, drugmakers and wholesale druggists attended what was called a National Conference on Planning for War and Postwar Medical Services. Apparent purposes of the meeting: 1) to oppose the trend toward state socialized medicine; 2) to forestall a postwar collapse of the drug market like that which followed World War I.

When Dr. Morris Fishbein, editor of the A.M.A. Journal, came out for the medical status quo, he was roundly applauded, even though socialized medicine should theoretically work to the advantage of medicine and the drug trade alike by providing more medical care for more people--thus more work for physicians, more business for druggists.

The disappointed New York Times, having taken the conference's title literally, complained that no social agencies, hospital associations, industrial corporations or Government agencies were invited, that "the number of papers on planning were few, and these failed to indicate how our medical problem is to be solved in the light of new needs."

Though they touched only slightly on planning, some of the medical top-notchers who spoke gave excellent papers. Points, mostly gloomy:

> Lieut. Colonel Thomas Mackie of the Army Medical Corps predicted an upsurge of epidemics when soldiers return home bringing new diseases (mostly tropical) with them, when half-starved, disease-ridden populations emigrate from Axis-dominated countries.

>Dr. John B. Youmans of Vanderbilt University declared that the "indiscriminate consumption of vitamins by the general public" is wasteful.

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