DEPARTMENT OF CELLULAR AND 
DEVELOPMENTAL BIOLOGY 
HARVARD UNIVERSITY 
The Biological Laboratories 
16 Divinity Avenue 
Cambridge. Massachusetts 02138 
September 12, 1986 
Dr. William Gartland 
Director, Office of Recombinant DNA activities 
Building 31, Room 3B10 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, MD 20892 
Dear Dr. Gartland: 
I am writing to express my support for the proposal submitted by 
the Committee for Responsible Genetics (CRG) to modify section III-A-4 
of the N.I.H. guidelines. I have read the criticisms of that proposal 
raised by the working group on human gene therapy, but disagree with 
some of them. 
I strongly believe that it is important for the RAC to state clearly 
and as a matter of public record that the N.I.H. will not fund any human 
germ line therapy experiments at this time. Further I believe that 
there needs to be a public education campaign that describes in clear 
language the positions and procedures of the RAC and its working committees. 
This educational effort needs to include public forums on the ethical 
and social questions raised by the possible uses of human gene therapy 
— germ line and somatic. For example, at present it is not widely 
known that federal support for human embryo research is precluded by 
statute. Therefore this should be stated explicitly in the RAC guidelines. 
People are aware that the RAC guidelines are revised as circumstances 
change. Human germ line experiments constitute a sufficient departure 
from past scientific procedures as to warrant a discussion and exposition 
of the types of issues that might legitimate changes and the types of 
procedures that would be required to change the guidelines to permit 
such experiments to go forward. 
The working group argues that restrictions on work in tissue culture 
cover experiments on human germ line cells, but I wonder whether these 
provisions in fact are sufficient given the special status of germ line 
cells. I also disagree with point 4 of the working group's recommendations. 
These issues need to get a public airing long before they reach the 
stage of a proposal to the RAC. When it comes to human gene therapy, 
we are talking about issues of broad public interest and significance. 
They must therefore be discussed in forums to which the public has readier 
access than it has to RAC meetings or the deliberations of institutional 
review boards . 
If we scientists want to increase public understanding of our work 
and public confidence in its social character, we must open the deliberations 
Recombinant DNA Research, Volume 1 1 
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