E-mail a friendLou Weisbach
airdate November 19, 2004
Founder of Ha-Lo, the world's largest promotional products company, Lou Weisbach started out selling T-shirts from his car trunk and went on to build a $650 million empire. Weisbach is a former high school basketball coach who believes coaching underdogs taught him how to succeed. That skill will come in handy as he tries to implement the American Center For Cures - an initiative that would change the focus of medical research. Weisbach says disease affects more people around the world than terrorism does.
Lou Weisbach
Tavis: When I first heard about Lou Weisbach and Dr. Rick Boxer and their plan to cure major diseases, I was skeptical. After all, there hasn't been a cure for a major disease in over 75 years in this country. But the more I hear about their idea for the American Center for Cures, the more intrigued I become. Lou Weisbach and Dr. Rick Boxer join us tonight from the windy city in Chicago. Nice to have you both on the program.
Lou Weisbach: Nice to be here. It's a pleasure.
Rick Boxer: Thank you so much.
Tavis: I'm glad to have you both. Lou, let me start with you. I read somewhere the other day that if we could cure just two--one, two--two major diseases in this country, we could save enough money in the health care industry to provide insurance for those 44 million uninsured that we heard so much about during the presidential campaign. True?
Lou: That is true, and we'd have a lot of money left over.
Tavis: That's significant.
Lou: Absolutely. It is significant, but the time has really come to get this job done. And, you know, from my point of view--and the President enunciates this better than anybody--you're either for cures, or you're against cures. It's time for all of us as Americans to step up and cure diseases. And we believe that we have the appropriate plan that will accomplish that.
Tavis: All right, so tell me how the plan would work. Tell me what the strategy is here.
Lou: The strategy is to have a Secretary of Cures, and the Secretary of Cures, much like Homeland Security, would integrate all of the government's health care entities with a single focus on cures in a totally accountable manner. In addition to that, we seek to set up the American Center for Cures, which would bring together the best scientists, technologists, chemists, biologists in the world on each separate disease-- for example, on Alzheimer's, on Parkinson's, on AIDs, Juvenile Diabetes...-to work in a Manhattan Project type approach until we accomplish cures.
Tavis: All right, so that's the strategy. Before I go to Dr. Boxer here, Lou, let me stay with you for a second.
Lou: Sure.
Tavis: That's the strategy. Let's talk now about politics, because it doesn't happen. You can't have--you can't fiat, clearly, into existence a cabinet level Secretary of Cures, so, politically, how likely is that to happen? What's the uphill battle here?
Lou: We think it is likely. We've been working on this for 5 years, and we're getting tremendous political support. 12 governors have recently signed a petition to George Bush on behalf of this. We have the heads of medical schools, the heads of hospitals, the heads of disease groups that are all lining up in favor of this, and so we do believe it's going to happen. But you're right, it's not easy to occur, and what is going to have to happen is there's going to have to be a groundswell from the public. And we are seeking today and on shows that we're doing in the near future to get Americans to line up, write their Congressmen, write their Senators, and demand them to support the formation of the American Center for Cures as well as a cabinet level position for cures.
Tavis: Dr. Boxer, I cast no aspersion on your idea. If I did, you wouldn't be on my program, so with that said, tell me why it is we need another level of bureaucracy, for lack of a better word here. I'm not a health expert, but I've heard of the National Institutes of Health, the NIH. I've heard of the CDC, Centers for Disease Control. I've heard of the Department of Health and Human Services. We have a Surgeon General in this country. Why do we need another cabinet level position?
Rick: Well, the American Center for Cures will be a center that fundamentally looks at health care research in a completely different manner. That is, presently, all the areas that you've mentioned, all the organizations you've mentioned--that is, the CDC, the NIH, all under the Health and Human Services Department...look at research--and academics, as well--look at research in the same way it's been looked at for 500 years, and that is that scientists say, "Well, I have an idea. I would like to get money to look at this idea." That's known as hypothesis-driven or curiosity-driven research. And it has produced a fantastic amount of science-- very, very good science. However, it is producing the pieces of a puzzle. The American Center for Cures wants to put the pieces of the puzzle together. We believe that there is--it's very important to have the billions of dollars that is presently being funded at the National Institutes of Health--we think it should be continued to be funded. However, that's producing science. We want to be accountable for cures. We believe that they've had their 500 years. And we want them to continue doing the research in that manner, because they're producing the pieces of the puzzle. We believe that we should also have another area, another fundamentally different way of looking at health problems, and these problems will be solved by applying the research to the diseases. We want to be the bridge between the scientific opportunities that are being produced by the National Institutes of Health and bring those to the bedside. We want to be--we want to look for cures.
Tavis: My grandmother, Big Mama, God rest her soul, used to say to me all the time that, "That idea is just too much like right." "The idea is just too much like right"--her way of saying the idea just makes too much good sense for it to be put into effect. If I were a cynic, I would suggest to you that there are a lot of folk in the health care industry who really don't want to find cures for this stuff, because the money is in not curing these diseases, but in treating these diseases. Dr. Boxer?
Rick: Well, I'm a physician. I've been practicing for nearly 30 years, and I am not a cynic. I am someone who is an optimist. I believe that fundamentally people want to do the right thing; that they want to cure diseases. There is plenty of money to be made in the cures. I'm not worried about doctors or pharmaceutical companies going bankrupt because they find the cures. I believe that they want to do the right thing, and I think that by finding cures, they will participate in one of the great aspects of human endeavor-...that is, like, a moon shot or a Manhattan Project. We will do what's right. We have been sitting around for hundreds of years. But let's just say--in the last few decades, how many times have family members-- say to each other, why does grandma or my loved one or my friend develop this cancer? And now, oh, unfortunately, he or she is going to pass away. Why not say, "Oh, my God. We have a method of preventing disease. We have a method of curing disease." And on doing it on a large scale. Now, I, personally, have been fortunate. I am the living proof of the basic, fundamental science that has been going on for the last 25 years. I had a bone marrow transplant 7 years ago for 2 cancers. I'm living proof that care can be given, and cures can be obtained.
Tavis: And Lou--with all due respect to Dr. Boxer, and I'm glad that's he's here to be a part of this conversation tonight--but you know as well as I do. You certainly haven't watched this campaign between Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry, that there is a strange, a curious intersection these days between science and politics. How might that intersection, that debate, that discourse impact an idea like this?
Lou: I really believe that the way that this is going to have to come down is from public demand. We have 113 million people in this country right now with a disease, and I believe a grass roots initiative will make the politicians realize something that they want to support anyway and should support on a bipartisan basis. It's time that we no longer accept that if you get a brain tumor or if you get various different types of diseases that you're going to die. It's time that this country be about hope, and being about hope means taking on a mission such as this, which is what this country has always been about. And, you know, Tavis, this goes much further than saving people in this country. This goes to another issue, and that is the way America is viewed around the world. By becoming the exporter of cures, America can be viewed around the world like we would all like it to be viewed. And if you really want to find a way to shut down terrorism, let's save lives around the world. Let's be the country that is not only looking out for our people in a compassionate way, but for people around the world. This can get done. Everybody, and I mean everybody, will tell us off the record that they believe that this is the right approach. Somebody--one of the leading gentlemen in the world in science listened to us on your radio show the other day and called up and said, "You guys are 100% right. Tell me what I can do." People all know this is the right approach. The time has come to cure diseases, but it's going to take the demand of the public to let all of our representatives know that this is what we should be focusing on. The real terror in this country is the terror that is going on right now in 113 million American homes where people have diseases. It's time to shut down the terror.
Tavis: Dr. Boxer, I've got less than 2 minutes here, and I certainly am not surprised to hear Lou say to me that everybody told him off the record it's a good idea, but back to this notion of science and politics intersecting. We might think it's a good idea to find cures, but our morals, our values, our ethics don't necessarily suggest that we all think we ought to go about that in the same way. Stem cell research is a clear example of that.
Rick: Well, we are not talking about stem cell research necessarily. We believe that the intersection of mathematics, physics, chemistry, biology should be brought together for the first time with computational science such as computer science and be able to bring together the different segments and the genetics that we've learned from the human genome project, to bring all that to bear upon diseases. This has never been done. All these important sciences have grown up in the 19th and 20th centuries segregated from biology. We believe that they should be all brought together. This is not--disease does not know party line, economic line, or any other demographic. Disease, unfortunately, cuts across everybody, and we are all, not only just Americans, but we're all in the human race, and we're all afflicted by this. And so it should be well beyond politics. This is the most fundamental thing in America, which is your health.
Tavis: Well, I--
Lou: Tavis, could I--I'm sorry.
Tavis: Lou, I'm out of time. I apologize for that, but I promise the idea is so intriguing, so fascinating, I'm certain that you will get a chance in the coming days and weeks and months ahead to talk about this--hopefully on this program and others. I like big ideas. It is a big idea, fascinating to consider, and I want to thank Lou Weisbach and Dr. Rick Boxer for joining us tonight from Chicago with this big idea about a Department of Cures. Nice to have you both on.
Lou: Thank you, Tavis. We appreciate it.
Tavis: Up next on this program, Billy Davis Jr. and Marilyn McCoo. Stay with us.
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