241 
DR. WATSON: I think so many things can cause harm to the public, but I 
have seen no way to think about it. I think as you move ahead in society you 
have to think about what you can do as a scientist. 
MR. 
original 
HELMS: 
letter? 
Okay , 
the 
next question I have is how 
many 
people 
signed that 
DR. 
WATSON: 
Maybe 
eight or eleven. 
MR. 
HELMS: 
Would 
any 
of them sign it again today 
1 
DR. 
WATSON : 
I don 
't 
think so. 
DR. 
FREDRICKSON: 
Are 
any other of the scientists 
here 
in the 
room today? 
DR. 
WATSON : 
I am 
afraid I am the only one. 
DR. 
FREDRICKSON: 
Dr . 
Szybalski, were you one? 
DR. 
SZYBALSKI: I 
know from Paul Berg, he says he 
was 
preparing and 
contacting everyone to write a letter of refusal saying that nobody would 
sign it any more. He says everybody told him that they were not ready to 
publish this letter, but everybody told him that they would not sign it any 
more . 
MS. PFUND: I asked the same question of people who signed the letter, 
and I didn't get that kind of — 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Let us leave the hearsay out. 
DR. WATSON: I will speak for myself. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Mr. Helms, you have the floor. 
MR. HELMS: Could I ask that the record be supplemented with that 
information, if that is possible to get, perhaps if Dr. Watson would care 
to do that for us. 
DR. WATSON: There has been a letter going around, which I would have 
signed — any of them, even though what I would have said is, just cut out 
all of this nonsense, and no guidelines or anything. Worry about something 
that is real. But I would sign anything which would sort of say that we 
had overreacted to a paranoia which I think it was, about cancer. That was 
putting the tumor virus genes in when we weren't quite sure what a tumor 
virus is, but if you really started worrying about it you wouldn't eat 
meat, or raw carrots, or — oh God, you would get so scared. 
MR. HELMS: I think there is something very important that I am trying 
to get at here, and I don't want to lose this. I would like some kind of a 
[ 445 ] 
