October 25, 1960

Dr. Howard Newcombe
Blology Branch

Atomic Energy of Canada
Chalk River, Ontarlo
Canada

Dear Howard:

Cavalli, Kretchmer and | have had the thought of looking Into some
aspects of the genetic basis of drug Idlosyncracies In children by estimating
the consanguinity Index from returns of questionnaires to Kretchmer's
colleagues In Pediatrics. We realize that there may be some question as to
the sources of bias and so forth, but the attempt se@as worth the effort. ms,
Jim Neel reminded me of your intensive program on the linkage of records oo
in vital statistics and we agreed that this might be an extremely apt :
application of them If you were Interested In the problem and If your t
techniques were appropriate for this specific Job. Presumably, It would *
be possible to obtain a classification of death certificates of children
on the basis of a record of this diagnosis and then you could get to work >
in trying to estimate the incidence of consanguinity. As there seems a
little likelihood of anything quite like this being developed In the
States, this should be an approach that [s at least complementary and .
perhaps considerably more rigorous than ours. In any case, we would Lt
certainly welcome it if you could proceed with an Investigation of -
Canadien material towards the same end.

The material | am enclosing is quite tentative and we would welcome
any critical remarks you might wish to add to others that we have received.
With best regards,

Yours sincerely,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

Encs.

JL/Jh ;
al Kir Solo vee é.