243 
be thinking about football or something like that. It diverts us away from 
doing science. It is not diverting us away from goofing off, because we 
have to goof off more to keep our sanity, rather than sending off a Memo- 
randum of Understanding to people who do not know what to do, because there 
are no facts by which anyone can make any decision about what is danger. 
So are you a good guy? A bad guy? 
It's a funny thing. They keep damning Cambridge and Vellucci, but the 
truth is that the more people who read the newspapers, the more scared they 
got. So it has been our educated, upper middle class who is scared as shit. 
The people who don't have any money, and who are starving, they are not 
worried about being done in. 
I really believe that science does good for society. Now, it also does 
harm, and to sort of say that the whole tradition of medical microbiology and 
science is irrelevant, all you have to do is eat more food — I mean, we are 
being attacked by everyone who sort of doesn't have the guts to go ahead. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Dr. Sinsheimer. 
DR. SINSHEIMER: I would just like to make a comment to Mr. Helms. He 
asked if there was any theoretical construct which would suggest that there 
might be any harm in recombinant DNA. Let me just take one particular area, 
the one that Dr. Watson mentioned, that of cancer. Dr. Watson pointed out 
that we are all infected with BK and maybe SV40 and so on. Nevertheless, it 
is, I think, generally agreed that tumor viruses are not a major source of 
cancer. That doesn't mean that they couldn't be, and I don't see how one 
could eliminate the possibility that by recombinant DNA experiments one might 
create a virus capable of producing a human cancer. 
DR. WATSON: Bob, could I ask you what steps you took to stop SV40 work 
at Cal Tech? I mean, you were totally unconcerned with pathogens, and if 
you want to really worry, you should have worried about that. You are gross- 
ly irresponsible if you think that this is dangerous, not to worry about 
protecting the people who came into exposure through the work of Dulbecco. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: I wonder, Dr. Sinsheimer, if you want to reply or 
not. You certainly have the right of rebuttal.' 
DR. WATSON: I think it totally inconsistent. 
DR. SINSHEIMER: I can make a lot of answers to that. I just wasn't 
responsible for Dulbecco's work. 
DR. WATSON: No, but you should have alerted the public if you had a 
real conscience. 
DR. FREDRICKSON: Dr. Sturgis, then Mr. Hutt, and Dr. Neel. That is 
it, I think. 
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