February 17, 1972

Dr. J. KR. Porter

Department of Microbiology

The University of Iowa College of Medicine
Iowa City, Iowa 52240

Dear Roger,

Thank you for your note of February 9th. I em glad we are in
such close agreement about the importance of the BW-Convention,
Yes, I certainly do agree that the fulfillment of its purposes will
require attention to many positive steps. A self-interested obligation
to world health is something we can never invest too heavily in. (I am
not so sure that all of our colleagues in the ASM were so eager to
prohibit BW, perhaps through understandable concerns about the
difficulties of verification.)

Certainly, at the right time and place I will hasten to comment
further on the treaty and especially if it appears to be running into
any difficulties. This is unlikely but it is just possible that it may
get caught up in the confusion about the ratification of the Geneva
Protocol, and whether that treaty covers harassing and anti-plant
agents,

I have a longish paper on CBW in press in the Stanford Journal
of International Studies and will send you a copy when I have a
readable text.

I strongly agree that the ASM should take strong positive steps
in keeping with Article 10. Apart from world health programs, do you
have other concrete recommendations at this time?

Sincerely yours,

Joshua Lederberg
Professor of Genetics

JL/rr