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While Douglas’s book didn’t have much connection to the reality of RMSF research, he was correct about this: the real people who died doing this research deserved a better death.
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When Douglas’ book “Green Light” was published in 1935, U.S. Public Health Service leaders must have greeted it as a lucky coincidence. They were beginning a public relations campaign focusing on the National Institute of Health (NIH—then singular). They wished to secure funding during the Depression to move the NIH from a small campus in the heart of Washington, D.C. to a spacious campus in Bethesda, Maryland, where state-of-the-art research buildings could be constructed, and the public health mandate of the NIH could be expanded. The public relations campaign focused heavily on newspapers.
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An article in TIME Magazine stated:
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“Dr. Spencer…is as modest as he is short. But his work in proving the tick transmission of deadly Rocky Mountain spotted fever (in some places it kills nine out of ten) and developing a protective vaccine has brought him a public reputation. He was idealized as the hero of Lloyd Douglas' novel, Green Light—moviegoers know him as the man (Errol Flynn) who went into the Rockies after ticks.”
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- (Quote from “Medicine: Spencer for Voegtlin,” TIME, Monday, June 28, 1943.)
It’s not known what the RMSF researchers in Montana thought of the movie. Perhaps they referred to Spencer as “Errol” in private
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