!! spellx done
254  The Nobel Letters
     Letter To Vellucci   August 1976

     In my view these guidelines are far more stringent than is
reasonably necessary for the protection of public health.  In every
case where reasonable doubt could be entertained, it has been resolved
in a way that imposes the most serious and conservative protective
requirements.  Most of the risks in question are purely conjectural
and no substantive basis can be found for the dire prediction
that the public health could be endangered by recombinant organisms.
Nevertheless, the Guidelines in their present form have accepted
every such speculation as if it were accepted reality.  In summary,
even the most cautious view of the NIH Guidelines should give
citizens ample assurance that they go far beyond what is necessary
to protect their health.

     Elsewhere I have commented that the very act of setting up such
elaborate precautions would frighten people because they go so far
beyond what we do in other spheres of life.  This seems to have 
happened in the present case--it is the very security precautions
having been doubled and redoubled that has generated an unjustified
fear.  On the other side of the coin, I take the opportunity to
indicate that research in this area has the potential for the most
extraordinary contributions to medical advance and I would hope that
Cambridge, Massachusetts would be proud to be the seat of major
accomplishments in this direction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------