The article analyzes initiatives taken by physicians from both the private and public sectors who contributed to placing the fight against cancer on the federal government's agenda of public health policies, which became embodied in the 1941 creation of Brazil's National Cancer Service. The text also aims to show that this historical process was directly related to the international context of scientific exchange between Brazil and the United States that was encouraged under the Good-neighbor Policy of the 1940s. It calls attention to political disputes over the coordination of efforts to fight the disease at the federal level.
scientific exchange; history of disease; history of cancer; Brazil
