Filariasis: problems and challenges.

Being President of the Society during the past year has been an enriching experience and I thank you for the privilege and opportunity to serve. My special thanks go to Dr. John Scanlon who shoulders the work of the Society so effectively. The last time I addressed the entire Society' was in this city in 1972 at a joint meeting with the American Society of Parasitologists. I dis cussed the relationship of government, parasi tology and tropical medicine and ended with an assessment of funding for research for these fields. In reviewing the history of extramural funding by the National Institutes of Health for filariasis research it was interesting to note that in 1965 only two grants existed for the total sum of $15,150. Seven years later, largely due to the efforts of the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Medical Science Program, the number of funded grants had increased to eleven for a total sum of $314,975. I do not intend to review the problem of fund ing for filariasis research in this address. Analyses of funding for research in tropical medicine and in parasitology, including the Illaniases,were made in recent years by Cook2 and Delappe.3 A few weeks ago a detailed report on funding for trop ical disease research was released by the Office of Technology Assessment of the United States Congress.4 I recommend this publication to you not only for the coverage of this aspect but for an important overview of the status of biomed ical research and related technology for tropical diseases. It indicates in a summary table of com bined annual funding by United States sources and by the World Health Organization that the filariases receive 3% of the total available funds for research and training in tropical diseases. As was pointed out by Dr. Cook,2 comparison of research support for parasitology with that for