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worked in the biomedical sciences, whether he has had direct medical experi- 
ence or only thinks in terms of indirect connections, is aware of the intense 
loss to society if we discourage activities that will convert some former 
lethal acts of God into cures and preventions that will save human lives. 
I am rather disturbed by the extent to which that aspect of the 
activity of scientists tends to get overlooked in very heartfelt and real 
concerns over the other aspects of the welfare of society. What Professor 
Dyson suggests is that somehow our society must try to construct mechanisms 
for balancing better the cost of saying yes to a given kind of research 
which does have risks, and the costs of saying no because of those risks, 
and therefore depriving society of the benefits. 
The problem of recombinant DNA seems to me to exemplify this concern 
of Dyson's several years after he wrote it, as vividly as any problem that 
has ever come up. The public is willing to see and encourage investigators 
to take large personal risks when the risk is closely connected with the 
benefit. Nobody says that medical investigators should not be willing to 
take tissues from people who died with Legionnaire's Disease, know absolute- 
ly nothing about it, but work with it in the lab and conceivably risk their 
lives, because somebody has to do that in order to find cures and preven- 
tions for future cases of Legionnaire's Disease. 
With recombinant DNA there isn't that close a connection between the 
risks that we are concerned with and the benefits, except that I think that 
all of those who have given much thought to the subject would agree that the 
potential benefits from work on Legionnaire's Disease are infinitely larger 
than the risks involved on isolating a single pathogenic organism. 
Now, I do not know how--I don't have a specific prescription on how to 
achieve this better balance that Professor Dyson urges that our society take 
— but I urge that those who are especially concerned with what they see as 
real hazards to society, take very much into account the costs of not en- 
couraging the rapid promotion of a kind of research that all biologists 
agree has as broad a spectrum of potential benefits as, say, the use of 
radioactive isotopes. 
I will not take the time to outline the benefits of this research, 
which has received very little discussion in these two days. The relation 
to cancer stares one in the face. 
One last consideration is not only the question of what the regulations 
will do if excessively bureaucratic, to the rate of progress, but also what 
they will do to the morale of the scientific community if it finds itself 
constantly under attack and on the defense for carrying out as responsibly 
as possible highly laudible activities. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Any questions or comments? 
Dr. Ahmed. 
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