238 
DR. AHMED: The same question could have been posed 30 years ago on 
asbestos . 
DR. WATSON: What? 
DR. AHMED: The same question could have been posed 30 years ago on 
asbestos. We didn't have the evidence then. 
DR. WATSON: But until someone gets sick, you can't fight against it. 
You have to have a reason. There are so many things we can get worried 
about, we have to limit ourselves to those things for which there is evidence. 
I mean, there are lots of things that scare the shit out of me, like 
TRIS and so on. Recombinant DNA, no. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Mr. Helms. 
MR. HELMS: I think, Dr. Watson, in fairness, one of the things that 
brings us all here — I understand fully your point of view, and I think I 
appreciate, after spending some time with scientists, some of your frus- 
tration with this. But I must say, I think it took a certain amount of 
courage for people like you and Paul Berg to bring out what you thought 
was a problem in the beginning. But I must say to you that because of the 
enormous respect that you enjoy, as does he and others, that you simply 
can't call that back in a flash. 
DR. WATSON: That is why I apologized to start with. I mean, that is 
all I can do. 
MR. HELMS: But I am not sure that you should really apologize for 
that, frankly because — 
DR. WATSON: Scientifically I was a nut. 
MR. HELMS: I don't know. You judge yourself. But I — 
DR. WATSON: I have no respect at all for that action. All people in 
this room are infected with BK early in life, to start worrying about it. 
I mean, you know, just the paranoia of physicists turned molecular biolo- 
gists. Molecular biologists are quite good at what they do, but to take 
them too seriously as human beings is nonsense. 
(Laughter . ) 
What we are witnessing is a disaster caused by molecular biologists, 
and a terrible diversion of an intelligent agency's mission away from what 
they should be doing. 
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