Attachment V - Page 1 
National Humanities Center 
7 Alexander Drive 
Research Triangle Park, 
N.C. 27709 
March 11, 1985 
Dear LeRoy: 
...I have read with interest the proposed guidelines for gene therapy, 
and am impressed with the care and precision in the drafting. Time did not 
permit me to make any comments before the deadline, but I do want to add one 
or two observations. 
First, and most important, I do appreciate the reasons for confining 
your attention to somatic-cell therapy — just as I appreciated the reasons 
for confining the attention of the Asilomar conference to questions of bio- 
hazard (notwithstanding the presence of Soviet scientists and their known 
interest in biological weapons). But I am not convinced about the theoretical 
or practical soundness of the separation. The organism is, after all, a whole, 
with interacting parts. Just because we choose to make the soma/germ line 
distinction, for the sake of our purposes, does not mean that these are 
two non-communicating realms. Somatic cells break down, and their products 
may find their way into the blood stream. Inflammatory processes in the gonads 
could bring high concentration of genetically transformed lymphocytes into pro- 
ximity to gamete producing cells, and the possibility of genetic transfor- 
mation is, at least in principle, a possibility to be reckoned with and ex- 
cluded by experiment — not by definition. Mind you, the risk might still be 
very much worth taking but, as your point II-C-1 indicates but does not stress, 
it must be considered and identified — and made more than a matter of optional 
comment, as you now have it. Indeed, the whole of point II-C suggests that 
at least some members of your panel are not entirely comfortable with the 
neat separation, and for good reason. The techniques for gene therapy of 
[ 63 ] 
