William McFate Smith
Year: April 29th, 2001
Location: Sonoma, California
Interviewed by: Blackburn, Henry
Abstract
Dr. Mack Smith is a physician who has also received training in epidemiology. He identifies many of the major influences that have shaped his career. Specifically, he highlights his role on the Public Health Service Hospital Trial on Mild Hypertension and the Coronary Drug Project in San Francisco, as well as the Tahoe summer epidemiology seminars sponsored by the American Heart Association.
Dr. Smith talks about the interplay between observational and clinical research and the impact it has had on current research and clinical practice. Dr. Smith also discusses the effect the high level of control that the NIH has over the field of CVD research has had on the scientific community and individual researchers. (HB)
Quotes
[The contribution of trials to the field] was the application of epidemiologic methods to clinical investigation that documented some of the theories from the observational studies. First of all, in one sense, offering the proof that these were indeed risk factors. Because if you reversed them it changed the outcomes.
The whole concept that has emerged of disease management is a direct outgrowth of the combination of the observational studies and the clinical trials.
One criticism I would make [about the NIH] is that they minimized or limited the potential value of some of the subsequent major clinical trials by under-funding. What didn’t get funded, in several instances, was a continuation of follow-up after the trial was over with.
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