STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER
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STANFORD UNIVERSITY ScHOOL OF MEDICINE May 14, 1970
Department of Genetics

Mr. Robert F. Lederer
American Association of Nurserymen, Inc.
835 Southern Building
15th & H Streets, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005

Dear Mr. Lederer,

Thank you for your letter of May 8th. I have great respect for
Dr. Iltis his having been a colleague of mine when I was at the
University of Wisconsin prior to 1959. The general terms of their
article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists seem to me beyond
debate. I have not really addressed myself to the subject with enough
detail to qualify as the expert that your last paragraph takes me for,
but, in fact, I had recently started to take some interest in the
subject and have begun to read a few things about it. I have also
noted that the field of "environmental psychiatry" is beginning to
differentiate as a recognized disciplineand I think that Dr. Iltis
and his co-authors are a little pessimistic in suggesting that there
is nothing going on, as he implies in his next to last paragraph.
The National Institutes of Mental Health do, I believe, support a
number of projects that are really not very distant from what Dr. Iltis
asks for. I notice further that just yesterday, at the meeting of the
American Psychiatric Association, there was a special panel concerned
with "the study of physical environment and its relation to psychiatry".

You might find it worthwhile to communicate with Mr. Clyde Dorsett,
Director, Architectural Project, National Institute of Mental Health,
Chevy Chase, Maryland, who was a member of that panel and who may be able
to give you further information on research in this field.

Sincerely yours,

Jo#hua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr
cC: Dr. Iltis (in re. Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January 1970)
Enclosure (copy of column 205, 206)

LT. J. P. KENNEDY, JR. LANORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH IN MENTAL RETARDATION
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE