Dr. Wm. J. Gartland 
2 . 
May 16, 1979 
One other point. In looking through the correspondence, I 
noticed Dr. Rowe's letter of April 20, 1979, to Dr. Cahill. The 
tone of this letter is quite upsetting. I presume Dr. Rowe was asked 
to invite other scientists to comment as objectively as possible on 
the scenarios he describes. But the tone of his own letter is so 
biased that it appears as a solicitation of rebuttals of the scenarios 
rather than of objective evaluations. It may well be that Dr. Rowe 
did not intend this tone to his leter, but he may be so prejudiced 
against any critics that he is letting it slip into his correspondence 
I suggest that if letters such as this became public they would bring 
into serious question the procedures which have been used to make 
decisions concerning recombinant DNA experiments. 
I am prepared to recognize the chance that most, if not all of 
the concerns over health hazards of recombinant DNA will turn out to 
be unfounded. However, I strongly believe that the evidence for this 
is still quite limited and that the increasing belief among many in 
[ this field that there are no dangers is more a result of the enormous 
and exciting scientific progress which has been made in the field, 
rather than new experiments on the safety question. 
I urge you and the members of your committee to make an attempt 
to keep some perspective on these issues, and let the antagonisms 
which seem to permeate the debates not get in the way of taking 
seriously issues of people's health. 
Sincerely , 
Jon Beckwith 
JB/am 
cc : Dr. Wallace P. Rowe 
Dr. Baruj Benaceraff 
Dr. Susan Gottesman 
Dr. Jonathan King 
Dr. Richard Goldstein 
Sheldon Krimsky 
[ 269 ] 
