NEW YORK UNIVERSITY-—BELLEVUE MEDICAL CENTER NEW YORK UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF MEDICINE 477 FIRST AVENUE, NEW YORK 16, N.Y. DEPARTMENT OF PHARMACOLOGY OREGON 9-3200 August 19, 1954 Dr. Joshua Lederberg Marine Biological Laboratory Woods Hote, Mass. Dear Joshua: Enclosed is a copy of the famous letter for your signature, together with Harry Zagle's reply to my inquiry. I have taken the liberty of accepting his suggestion and deleting our fifth paragraph. If you would like to handle this paragraph in any other way don't hesitate to let me know; Beate says she won't mind typing it once more. I'm sorry Hagle didn't send us a copy of his letter, but in its absence I would assume that our letter contains material that Eagle had not covered, and that would still be worth calling to the Editor's attention. Besides, it would be a shame to discard all the man-hours thet went into this creation} I'm wi aN aaen such nasty jobs as packing the lab and finishing the review; how I wish I could still be at Woods Hole. Best regards to isther. Sincerely, Bernard D. Davis P.5. Please let me know when you have sent this off as I would then like to send copies to Qurt Stern, Ubell, and a couple of other people. The iditeor The New York Times New York 36, N. Y¥. Dear Sir: The problem of informing the publie on scientific matters is as importent to scientists as to newsmen; but regrettably these two eroups have not alvays achieved mitual confidence. \@ would like to ea 1 to your ettention an article that illustrates one source of the difficulty. This article, wich annesred in The Now York Times of June 10, 1954, dese -ibead a simposiun st Muteers University which the writers attended. The article began: "Strong evidence or the inheritance of acquired cheructeristics was reported here today.” ‘fter this farereaching stetenent, i: then revsvred to the paper of ore Harry sacle on drug resistance in becteria. wheat or, sare actually stated was the following: 1) Yue.e has been irrecutable ovidonece shat in meny ceasss drug resistance arises by spontancous mutation. 2) Yhere has so far been no clear-cut case of inherited “leacning” of drug resistance (i.e., inheritance of an acquire: characteristic), some indicati:ns “rom lis own previous experiments being coneeded to be indecisive. 3) However, oxperi- ments in progvess may stiil leai to substantiation of the “learuing* theory in a few exemyles of drug resistance that have not yet been fully clarilied. This is searecely “strong evidence for the inhevitanee ov acquired charneteoristies." in a second error stuiics with radioaciive antibiotics on unrelated, oiochenica aspects of urug recisteuce were incorrectly linked by your re orter to the genetie controvorsy. The exaggeration of or. acle's claim tlisn led the reporter to a len-thy viscuscsion of "the -ussian concept of ceneties" and the "observetion™ shat "astem selentists «ec in the anomalous sosition of having to hold tict the sucsien concept is wrong although experimental evidence seens to sucmest that it is richt." ve are particularly disturoed tha: thie “observation” was incorrectly attributed, by inferenco, to Or. wagle. -urtherwore, we are concemed vy the statenent itself, which seriously quisticns the intellectual fre:dom of American scientists by implying thet en official conetic Jocirine exists herve se vell as in Suasia, while se, too, are worried about the increasing pressu es on intellectual freadom here, and welcome the Timea’ concern for it, this odito ial in@ictment seems Tar too grave to be prosented so li-htl. in a news report. In addition, in our view the "dilemma for scientists" implied in your reporter's statement (end featured in the headline) would nct be real sven if excepticnal cases Of inheritance of acquired characteristics wee to be proved. Modem genetics does not exclude the possibility of such deviations from the fundamental pattern of Mendelian inheritance. In contrast, the official Russian doctrine does more than streas the inheritence of acquired characteristics; it totally rejects modern genetic theory and largely ignores the innumerable verifiable experiments on which this theory is based. w@ appreciate the need to add background materialgin mokin: an effective news report out of a scientific contribution. Netertheless, it seems sclf- evident that the material added by the reporter should be clearly distinr-uished from that provided by the scientist; and the scientist's statement should not be distorted for purposes of relating it to issues of wide popular interest. We are sure you agree that despite the special problems of science news reporting this newspaper department should adhere to the same standavds of accuracy as the others. ve would welcome your comments on how the diffieultiocs illustraced by the present case might be avoided. Yours sincevely, Bernard D. Davis, M.D. Joshua Lederberc, Ph.D. Chaimman, Dept. of Pharmacology Professor of Genetics New York University College University of Siseconsin of Medicine P.S. Dr. Sagle has seen a copy of this letter and verified our sumary of Lis statoments. ee: R. ik. Plumb