DEPARTMENT OF MICROBIOLOGY AND MOLECULAR GENETICS 
HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL 
25 Shattuck Street 
BOSTON. MASSACHUSETTS 02115 
May 16, 1979 
Dr. Wm. J. Gartland 
Recombinant DNA Office 
National Institute of Allergy 
and Infectious Disease 
NIH, Bldg. 31, Rm. 7A04 
Bethesda, MD. 20014 
Dear Dr. Gartland, 
Richard Goldstein has recently shown me documents from RAC 
which include my letter and responses to it. I am rather disturbed 
by the tone of some of this correspondence. 
I would first like to recapitulate the origins of my letter 
of October 26, 1978. Over a year ago, while I was visiting the 
Institut Pasteur in Paris, Dr. Maurice Hofnung, who collaborates 
with us, told me of his interest in fusing somatostatin, insulin, 
etc. to our B-galactosidase hybrid proteins which were localized to 
the E. coli outer membrane. He asked me if I had any objections to 
the experiments, and I said no.' This is hardly the response of 
someone who is looking for reasons to stop recombinant DNA experiments! 
When I returned to Boston, I began to think more about these 
experiments, and became concerned that the hybrid somatostatins , etc., 
might be immunogenic in such a way as to break tolerance. 
It seems to me that, given this concern, the natural course is 
to ask other people's opinions to see whether there was any reason 
to take these concerns seriously. This is what I did. I talked to 
all the individuals mentioned in my letter, and not one of them said 
that there was no basis for my concern. I did not have long detailed 
conversations with them, but I did describe the specific strains and 
my worries. I never stated in my letter to you that these individuals 
said that the work was dangerous. The conversations were a basis for 
the next step which was contacting you. I would have liked nothing 
better than for them to tell me that there was no basis for my concerns 
I really don't need this aggravation. But I do feel responsibility 
for work that comes out of our laboratory. I deeply resent Dr. 
Benaceraff's implication that I have misrepresented anyone. 
I have never been among those who had strong feelings about 
the health hazards of recombinant DNA. We do such research in our 
laboratory, and it is only specific examples of the sort I have 
described, where I think some evaluation should take place. I 
appreciate the thoughtful responses from Drs . Talal and Dixon, and 
while they do allay my fears to some extent, it seems to me that Dr. 
Dixon's suggestion of animal experiments is reasonable. 
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