STANFORD UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER OS tha
STANFORD, CALIFORNIA 94305

 

 

September 23, 1976

STaNrorp University Scuoot, OF MEDICINE

Department of Genetics
(115) 497-5052

Mr. Peter J. Herman
Adnintstrative ageistant to
Senator Arlen Gregorio

State Capitol

Sacramento, California 95814

 

Dear Mr. Herman,

Thank you for your letter of September 14th and for the copy of
Dr. Parkinson's letter of August 31st.

SHOE oye Be

The factual answers to the questions that were given to Dr. Parkinson
are no different than what I would have replied myself. However, as I
told you over the phone, I believe they constitute a distortion of my
proposal, and to put the questions in this way has clearly served to under-
mine the case that I was trying to make. I was in no way asking for a
blanket exemption :from safety practices for using small quantities nor would
I have implied that small amounts of carcinogens per se could be disregarded.

The entire emphasis of my concern and proposal was the utter in-
appropriateness of using an industrial-—tonnage standard for safe handling
of these chemicals in the context of the academic research laboratory.
Safe practice standards certainly will have to be developed for this context
and they surely will have to be very different than those applied to large-
seale industry or else all chemical research will grind to a halt! In fact,
it may also become very difficult for the laboratories of the Department
of Health to continue to fulfill their analytical responsibilities if the
same standards are applied to them.

: *

As I told you, the compounds on the present list do not pose such
grave problems; if, however, as appears to be imminent, solvents like chloro-
form are added to the list, the situation will clearly become intolerable!

Yes, you did indicate that it would be possible to obtain a variance.
But I wonder if you have contemplated the cost of going through these
bureaucratic procedures and the impediment that they undoubtedly will
impose on continuing to do scientific work. That is why I had hoped we might
find some more steamlinaf procedures to meet aims and ends that I think we
do agree upon.

At the very minimum I hope that under the aegis of the new law it may
be possible to conduct hearings at the earliest possible moment with respect
to establishing a general variance to apply to the circumstances I have just
indicated. Or will it be necessary for every laboratory and every institution
to hire a new cadre of lawyers in order to pursue these exigent requirements?

LY. J. P. KENNEDY, JR. LARORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH IN MENTAL RETARDATION

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE
Mc. Peter J. Herman ~2- | 9/23/76

I have had a long history of experience of concern about chemicals in
the environment and the role of ‘carcinogens “therein. However, I am afraid
that the word is being picked up as a scare item,sometimes out of proportion
to its actual implication for public health. The day that you proposed to
treat cigarettes’ - not as an important public health issue but as a
subject for regulation requiring protective clothing, special fume hoods and
so forth, that will be the day that I believe that you will understand the full
dimensions of this problem. After all, cigarettes are also "suspected
carcinogens", and I wonder what the statistical report given by Dr. Parkinson
would look like if it had included this product.

I wonder if you are aware also that alcohol is a “suspected carcinogen"
although I do not expect this to appear promptly on any legal prescribed list.

_t have used this parody not to diminish the concern that ought to be
applied to many very dangerous chemicals but rather to point out the folly
of taking a phrase like "suspected carcinogen" at face value as representing
the kind of hazard that it will appear to do to the uninformed public mind
reading summaries of this kind. The net result of this blunderbuss approach
will, I am sure, be the imposition of intolerable additional cost in the
prosecution of exactly that health oriented research which hopefully might
be directed at the solution of these same health problems. So, it really is
that approach and not the ends that I hope I can bring to your more
sympathetic consideration.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

ec: Mr. Jim Bitter
Dr. David K. Parkinson