LEDERER, o.

    

Maa,
J, he No THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY
of Rockefeller \t=
. University /< 1230 YORK AVENUE NEW YORK. NY 10021
Od ao November 2, 1978

JOSHUA LEDERBERG

PRESIDENT

Mrs. Eppy Lederer
Chicago Sun-Times

401 N. Wabash Avenue
Chicago, Illinois 60611

Dear Eppy:

I was very pleased that you thought to send me
a copy of your new encyclopedia. You must have been
quite thrilled to see this come out. Although any-
thing that covers such a broad range of human affairs
as this does inevitably must have some mistakes, and
even more certainly includes some controversy, I am
sure that it will contribute to a more sensible and
orderly and happy arrangement of many people's lives;
and that you can take a great deal of gratification
from that as you already do from the other manifesta-
tions of your career.

So what I have to say now is just picking a very
tiny nit but I know that you would want to be informed
about these, when you come out with another of what I
am sure will be many editions. On page 404 you attri-
bute certain statements to me about LSD that are simply
not mine. I have not worked myself on LSD but have
served on various committees evaluating it and the main
thrust of my own conclusions has been precisely what
you indicated: that the case about its genetic hazards
is simply not proven. It would of course be unethical
to do a controlled experiment in human beings with this
material and particularly for studying the possibility
of adverse genetic effect and it is unlikely that we
ever will have a final and conclusive answer. Observa-
tional studies on groups of people who have taken LSD
are almost useless for scientific purposes since these
individuals are inevitably peculiar in a large number
of characteristics and one can hardly be sure that any
difference in outcome is simply to the chemical itself.
Mrs. Eppy Lederer
November 2, 1978

-2-+

For example, it is almost certain that LSD users will
have a higher experience of hepatitis than the rest
of the population. Furthermore, very few people who
take LSD have had access to the chemically pure com-
pound and it is almost impossible to know just what
is contained in the street preparations that are

sold as "LSD".

In any case, it is just incorrect to say that
Lederberg, notably above others, has made claims about
chromosome breaking effects that have been not substan-
tiated by others in the light of what I have just told
you. Lest you think this is a retrospective recon-
struction I am enclosing some of the few previous
writings that I made on this particular subject.

This is probably the most innocent of the circum-
stances in which I have been accused of holding an
advocacy position on a subject, where I was strongly
attempting to offer a balanced review of the available
information provided by others: so I do not want you
to think that I feel particularly badly about this.

But I was sure that you would want to include this in
the list of corrigenda for future writings. Unfortu-
nately, statements like this tend to have a snowballing
effect, are requoted by others and the very fact that
they appeared under your own name gives them an authen-
ticity that they would not otherwise have.

With best wishes for your continued good work.

You affectionately,

Jopsfiua Lederberg