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MAR 7 1973

DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH, EDUCATION, AND WELFARE

PUBLIC HEALTH SERVICE
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH
BETHESDA, MARYLAND 20014

August 11, 1971

Dear Joshua,

Thank you very much for your most helpful review and criticism
of the sickling proposal. I have not answered earlier because, it
seems, all the secretaries have gone on vacation simultaneously
but I decided to peck this with my two fingers,for several things
are happening here which you ought to know.

First, the proposal. The version I sent you is only a first
draft which was developed to get the reaction of the NHLI as to what
they wanted. At that time they had not as yet set up a mechanism for
review of proposals in sickle cell anemia, nor had they any idea what
this mechanism would finally be. We were told that they liked the
proposal, that procedures for review would be established sometime
in September and that they would give us guidelines for writing up
the final application.

We do plan to make sibling comparisons and comparisons between
sibling mothers. As you know, about 20% of our Study children are
repeat pregnancies, most of them second, but some third, fourth,
and even fifth. We could include siblings who were not born in the
Study without much difficulty but we will not have on them all the
data which we have on the Study children. Similarly, about 6000
Study mothers are close relatives of other Study mothers, most
of them sisters, but some mothers, daughters and sisters-in-law.
The opportunities of doing a thorough study are excellent, provided
that we are allowed to go through with it, which brings me to the
second part of my discourse.

An administrative storm is brewing over the Collaborative
Study. In spite of the restoration of funds by the House and the
Senate the decision has been made in Dr. Marston's office to
phase the Study out as soon as possible, get rid of most of the
PRB scientists and leave a skeleton staff to complete data intake
and perform analyses in the form of simple cross-tabulations.

The ax has fallen liberally. Most of the scientific staff here

has been told to find other jobs by next spring and I was told
that I,,too, will soon leave the Branch, though I will still have

a job in the Institute but in some other capacity.1 think that

I made a good case against abandoning all the promising projects
which we started in the genetic area, and was finally promised that
I will be allowed to work on them in my new capacity, whatever that

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will turn out to be.

All this will probably come about during the next six months.
The whole thing is still very nebulous and makes no sense, whatso-
ever. As you can imagine, the atmosphere here is quite depressing.
If you get to Washington before the Paris meetings I would very
much appreciate the opportunity of discussing this with you at

some length, otherwise we can do that in Paris under more pleasant
surroundings.

Very cordially,

‘Dis