October 13, 1975

Me. Harry Schwartz
New York Times

229 W 43rd Street
New York, New York 10036

Dear Harry,

I was sorry to see the editorial "Genetic Quandry” that appeared in
the New York Times for October 6th. That is to say, it seemed to be missing
a final paragraph.

It is indeed true that one side-effect of improved scientific under-
standing of genetic disease is to stay the hand of natural selection in
restraining or reducing the prevalence of deleterious mutations. It should
also be noted, however, that this is the least important of our medical
problems from a social context since the rate of increase of genetic
disease can be demonstrated to be extremely low by comparison with either
the rate of medical advance in dealing with it, or the new disease influences
that result from changes in environment and in life-style. Furthermore, the
same genetic science that enables victims of genetic misfortunate to survive
and perhaps to propagate some of these genes also gives them the knowledge
to use their own judgement and wisdom in deciding about whether to have such
children at risk. This science has also furnished and hopefully will continue
to be even more effective in the future, many new tools for the recognition
of potential disease carrier states, even to the point in some circumatances
of identifying fetuses who would have very dismal prospects for human life
and enabling a humane choice with respect to their aborsion. In any case,
these probéams have a very small relative social impact compared to their
significance for the individual families in which they occur. Rather than
look with alarm to the social impact, I would rather encourage the dissemination
of more wise counseling about genetic disease to enable individual families
to make the soundest judgments in their own interest.

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr