Armstrong – Table of Contents

effects of the agents (“human guinea pig”). These accusations demonstrated complete
ignorance of Armstrong’s investigative integrity.
Armstrong was the recipient of another prestigious honor several years later in
April 1944. He was one of the first NIH investigators at that time elected as a member of
the National Academy of Sciences (2). “ The NAS is an honorific society of
distinguished scholars engaged in scientific and engineering research, dedicated to the
furtherance of science and technology and to their use for the general welfare. The NAS
was signed into being on March 3, 1863 at the height of the Civil War. As mandated in its
Act of Incorporation, the NAS has since 1863 served to ‘investigate, examine,
experiment and report upon any subject of science or art’ whenever called upon to do so
by any department of the government. Scientific issues would become more contentious
and complex in the years following the war. To keep pace with the growing roles that
science and technology would play in public life, the institution that was founded in 1863
eventually expanded to include the National Research Council in 1916, the National
Academy of Engineering in 1964, and the Institute of Medicine in 1970. Collectively the
four organizations are known as the National Academies.
“The National Research Council is the body called upon most frequently for advice on
scientific and technological issues that pervade policy decisions sought by the United
States Government. The NRC works outside the framework of government as a non-
profit organization by enlisting committees of prominent scientific professionals to
provide advice on complex issues of science, technology or medicine. At the present time
the Academy membership is comprised of approximately 2000 members and 350 foreign
associates of whom more than 200 have won Nobel Prizes.