YALE UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
YALE ARBOVIRUS RESEARCH UNIT

DEPARTMENT OF EPIDEMIOLOGY 60 COLLEGE STREET
AND PUBLIC HEALTH NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT o6510

June 15, 1970

Dr. Joshua Lederberg
Department of Genetics
School of Medicine
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

Dear Dr. Lederberg:

I have looked over the items you so kindly sent from "Science and
Disease" of the Washington Post, and shall make a few comments. First,

they are very well presented, and are timely and very relevant to current
problems.

On the March 14th item on yellow fever, "jungles of Central Africa
and Brazil" could be amplified, for New World interest, to Brazil, Trinidad,
the Guyanas, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru.

In the March 7th item relathg to Lassa fever, you probably know that
the January-February 1970 outbreak in Jos has indeed been confirmed as a
second outbreak of this disease. NCDC~Atlanta, with better containment
facilities for dangerous agents, has taken over the Lassa work from us.
A large effort is called for to determine whether this disease is widespread
(and hitherto undifferentiated from various other diseases) in Africa, and
to determine what the full life history of the virus is. A series of articles
presenting preliminary data will appear in the July issue of American Journal
of Tropical Medicine. Our efforts to get support funds to continue field
studies on Lassa (directed to NIH) have thus far yielded nothing.

Sincerely yours,
Withg Ybor

WGD/cb Wilbur G. Downs, M.D.