SEr & & 1972

JOHN V. TUNNEY
CALIFORNIA

Wnited Slates Senate

WASHINGTON, D.C. 20510

September 19, 1972

Dear Friend:

One of the most difficult problems facing a United
States Senator is the early anticipation of complicated
and vital issues - and focusing the attention of others
on those issues so that a rational approach to the issue
can be fashioned.

I believe that one area which urgently requires
understanding, but which has been all but ignored by the
American public, is the general area of genetic engineering.
A wide range of questions - technical and scientific, legal
and ethical - are raised by the dramatic new technologies
which have been developed by the biomedical scientists. I
am particularly interested in the social, legal, legislative,
and ethical questions raised by the new developments in this
field.

Accordingly, I participated recently in a symposium on
the subject at the California Institute of Technology. My
speech was reprinted in the Congressional Record and was
then developed by my legislative assistant, Mel Levine, and
myself into an article in the Saturday Review of Science.

 

Because of the importance of this subject and the need
that increased attention be directed to it, I am taking the
liberty of forwarding the article to you. I hope that you
will find it provocative and that it Will,help to stimulate
increased thought in this general ar

  

JVT/mht