October 10, 1975

Dr. Geradd F. Winfield

Assoctate Chief

Manpower and Institutional Development
Division of the Office of Population
Agency for International Development
320 21st Street, N.W.

Washington, D.C.

Dear Dr. Winfield,

Several people have independently given me your name as the person
I should contact on the following matters. In addition, I was most interested
to read your remarks in the enclosed discussion.

I should introduce myself in the context of having been a member of the
Advisory Committee on Medical Research for WHO for the last few years. At our
last session Director Dr. Mahler and I had several extended discussions on
trying to find ways in which basic science could be more immediately useful
in meeting health needs of rural people in developing countries. This is an
area in which I pretend no expertise but I will be spending some time in
Geneva in early December dndwishat I have to say will be prdéiabifvypramarily
an educational exercise for my own benefit.

One issue that I am trying to learn more about is the microbiology of
disposal of fecal wastes in a rural sanitation context. I was interested to
read the Chinese's Barefoot Doctor's Mannual and their advocacy of composting
as a disposal procedure. I have also been reading a very large volume of
research reports which were sponsored by EPA that is now looking towards
composting as the method of ultimate disposal of our own sewage sludges.

It then struck me too as ironic - and this resonates with some of
your own remarks in the quoted attachment ~ that heroic efforts are some~
times being made in developing countries to find the financial resources to
develop hydraulic sewage systems, as an alternative to composting; meanwhile
we are trying to learn more about composting in order to solve the problems
that we simply move from one place to another by our hydraulic engineering!

At any rate, I wonder if you know what may be going on in the AID
context of technical support for health development with respect to the
furtherance of effective composting technologges. And to you have any clear
idea as to how these methods are actually used in practive - do they in fact
work according to theory with respect to matters like thermal disinfection
Dr. Gerald F. Winfield -2- 10/13/75

in the compost heaps and so on, The main point is to find out just where
a critical evaluation of these procedures in a rural health context is going

on and to see what might then be thought about as ways to introduce possible
technical improvements,

In ang event, I would be delighted to get pointers to other literature
or to get some amplification of your remarks on whether there is "enough
water in China" ~ meaning, of course, the extrapolation of this concern to

countries with even more pressing problems and fewer resources to deal with
them,

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr