Yale University 
New Haven, Connecticut 06510 
SCHOOL OF MEDICINE 
33 3 Cedar Street 
Department of Human Genetics 
September 6, 1978 
Dr. Donald Frederickson 
Director, National Institutes 
of Health 
Bethesda, MD 20014 
Dear Dr. Frederickson: 
I would just like to express my opinion that the new proposed Guidelines 
for Recombinant DNA Research are if anything too stringent 
in the requirements on the scientific community. I would 
think that cloning of animal DNA in SV40 could safely be 
reduced to P2 conditions without any realistically conceivable 
possibility of harm and I would hope that new Guidelines 
might eventually permit this. My personal opinion is that 
at this point any guidelines are apt to do more harm than 
good in terms of producing an impediment to scientific progress. 
snerman m. weissman, m.u. 
Professor of Human Genetics, 
Medicine, and Molecular Bio- 
physics and Biochemistry 
[A-86] 
