Amesh Adalja claimed in a web letter that President Franklin Roosevelt's policies, prolonged the economic downturn of the Great Depression, yet offers no statistical evidence to back up his claim. The GDP of the US bottomed out in 1933, but steadily grew until 1940, with the exception of 1937. The US had growth rates of 9 to 10% during the 1930s. Unemployment dropped more than half during FDR's first term. Does that sound like prolonging an economic downturn? Amesh Adalja's writing is nothing more than recent right wing historical revisionism designed to discredit FDR's economic policies. No serious historian believes that FDR's economic policies prolonged the Great Depression. In fact, the only downturn during FDR's presidency was in 1937/38, when the President agreed to try to balance the budget and cut spending. Stick to medicine, not economic history.