Glasses were raised and toasts made at an evening event held March 27 at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center to celebrate the premier of “Triumph at Carville,” a new PBS documentary which began airing nationwide the next day.

Produced by filmmaker John Wilhelm and Washington Post columnist Sally Squires, the film documents the triumph over one of mankind’s most feared diseases, leprosy, also known as Hansen’s disease. The one-hour program features the history of the 100-year-old national leprosarium in Louisiana popularly known as “Carville,” and contains interviews from patients, doctors, nuns and staff, as well as archival video and many period photographs.

HRSA was invited to attend the premier because of the important role it has played in Carville’s history. HRSA and its predecessor agencies in the U.S. Public Health Service were responsible for funding and overseeing operations at Carville. Since its creation in 1982, HRSA has administered the Hansen’s Disease Program, which now operates from offices in nearby Baton Rouge.

More than 200 guests, including former patients, nuns who worked at the hospital, and public health personnel, attended the viewing, which was preceded by a reception at Walter Reed’s National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology.

The reception offered guests time to sample Cajun food and view a new museum exhibit on Hansen’s disease that coincided with the premier of the documentary. For more on the exhibit, visit the National Museum of Health and Medicine's exhibit, "Triumph at Carville".

For decades, U.S. citizens diagnosed with leprosy were required by law to be quarantined at Carville. After decades of difficult patient experiments, U.S. Public Health Service researchers finally found a cure. For more information on the history of the program and the disease, read the article in the April 2007 issue of Inside HRSA, HRSA's Hansen's Disease Program Marks 90-Year Anniversary.

Before the hour-long movie started, remarks were made by representatives of the Department of Defense and the Surgeon General’s office, as well as by former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop, Sally Squires, HRSA Senior Advisor Steve Smith, and political consultant James Carville, who grew up near the hospital, and whose family name was adopted by the town and leprosarium.

For more information on life at Carville as depicted in the documentary, visit PBS "Triumph at Carville" (not a U.S. Government Web site).

HRSA Deputy Associate Administrator for Primary Health Care Don Weaver confers with former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop during the reception held for "Triumph at Carville."

HRSA Associate Administrator for Primary Health Care Jim Macrae (left) and Jim Krahenbuhl, Director of HRSA's Division of National Hansen's Disease Programs, helped represent the Agency at the evening event.

On the day of the reception, a new exhibit focused on Hansen's disease was launched at the National Museum of Health and Medicine of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

The main building at Carville.