Yee

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
MEDICAL SCHOOL

DEPARTMENT OF HUMAN GENETICS TELEPHONE:
1133 E. CATHERINE STREET ANN ARBOR, 663-1511
ANN ARBOR, MICHIGAN EXTENSION 3202

k May 1962

Dr. Joshua Lederberg

Department of Genetics

School of Medicine

Stanford University Medical Center
Palo Alto, California

Dear Josh:

Perhaps the best way to answer yours of April 26th is to say,
yes, in the best of all possible worlds there would still be an ex-
tensive genetic program in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, employing several
geneticists and an even greater number of pediatricians, You are not t
the first to suggest that there should be a much more active program
in progress at the present time. Unfortunately, this is the kind of
a project everyone is all for as long as he doesn't carry the primary
responsibility. I will not bore you with the problem of recruitng
geneticists and ancillary personnel with which I struggled for some
eight years, Particularly in the early years, when life in Japan was
much tougher than what you have just witnessed, it was almost impossi-
ble to find participants.

However, I am not sure that your informant during the course of
your visit gave you a fair picture of what continuing genetic activity
there was. Firstly, we do continue to collect data on the sex ratio
effect, which has emerged as the most promising of the few leads con-
cerning tangible genetic effects which came out of the study. Secondly,
there is in progress right now a study on the death rate amongst the Fy,
a study which, if we can extrapolate from Bill Russell's results with
mice, as well as those of Lush and Hazel with swine, might just show some-
thing. Thirdly, our consanguinity studies (of which a first report isin
the current PNAS), which were a direct outgrowth of the old genetic study,
are continuing, and we are in fact right now planning a return trip to
Japan to clean up some odds and ends there. In this connection, I would
say that from the scientific standpoint the yield from these latter studies,
which were only possible because of the preceding study, is really very
high.

With respect to the comment on the "appalling" follow-up on congenital
anomalies, I am not quite sure what you have in mind, As we pointed out
in our 1956 opus, our total number of congenital defects checks out very
well with the results of dhers. With respect to the specific question of
Dr, Lederberg -2- 5/4/62

mongolism, I wonder if you have seen our little note in Lancet, Mar.

10, 1962, pp. 537-538? Following the article by Uchida and Curtis we
re-examined our data and were quite unable to confirm their report.

In the 15,000-odd children re-examined at age 9 months, we had a frequency
of mongolism of 1 per 1,000, This is lower than what we would expect

in a Caucasian population, but it's the best series available for Japan

at the moment; it doesn't look as if we did too badly. As a matter of
fact, we feel that if Uchida and Curtis had stopped to reflect about the
probable dosages involved in their material, and the implications of their
apparent increase, they would have been much more cautious, At any rate,
as you will see from this note, we are thinking about the relationship
between non-disjunction and radiation, In this connection, I have just
sent off the manuscript for a little monograph on radiation effects, which
examines rather extensively what nondisjunction might do to the sex ratio;
I am also at this moment in correspondence with the ABCC about the possi-
bility of surveys on Hiroshima and Nagasaki school children, trying to re-
late the occurrence of nondisjunction types to radiation history. But as
is so often the case in population work, this is a large decision, tying up
three or four people for a couple of years.

Finally, I agree with you that there is an opportunity for population
genetics being missed in the overall program of the ABCC, You are not the
first to point that out. We too have made the point. But faced with the
same difficult choices regarding time utilization as any other investigator,
I really haven't felt it was worth the two years of work it would take to
revamp their records and their thinking. Any volunteers?

Best regards,

 

James V, Neel, M.D.

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