Document 5LxYQENnYXyy3gEJM0rw1m8wD

August 21, 1970 G. J. Stopps, M.B., B.S. Assistant Director Haskell Laboratory .1. du Pont de Nemours & Company Wilmington, Delaware 19893 Dear Jim; Thanks for your letter of July 22 about the paper' of Dr. Keller. While there was, and is, no doubt in my mind about the quality of his paper, I was disturbed about your involvement. It is good to know, as 1 strongly suspected, that your professional and scientific interests are not at odds with my own in this instance. Sincerely yours, RAKtwb Robert A. Kehoe, M.D. Professor Emeritus of Occupational Medicine N 7881 ESTABLISHED WO.' E. I . d u P o n t d e N e m o u r s 51 C o m p a n y IN CO R PO R ATED W i l m i n g t o n , De l a w a r e 19898 EMPLOYEE RELATIONS DEPARTMENT H A SKELL LA BO RA T O RY T O X I CO LO G Y AN D I N D U ST RI A L M ED I CI N E ' July 22 , 1970 Robert A. Kehoe, M.D. University of Cincinnati Department of Environmental Health Kettering Laboratory College of Medicine Eden and Bethesda Aves. Cincinnati, Ohio 45219 Dear Bob: I have just returned from four weeks of vacation to find your letter and the Keller manuscript on my desk. The paper arises from some preliminary studies which we sponsored some years ago in trying to answer the question: "is lead mobilized from the maternal skeleton during the period of high calcium demand by the fetus in late pregnancy?" The results of this and some other studies we carried out at the University of Pennsylvania convinced me that without a spe cific interest in this particular problem by the clinical group involved and a much more sophisticated experimental design than could be undertaken in the conditions usually found in the outpatient department of an obstetrical service, the question could not be answered. As I am sure you will appreciate far better than most people the relationship between the university person carrying out a piece of research and those responsible for partial or complete financial support can be a delicate one. In the case of Dr. Keller, personal relationships were always good, but it quickly became apparent to me that my original idea of how many mothers would need to be studied and the number of analytical samples required from each mother were inadequate and therefore I regarded the study by Dr. Keller purely as a pilot study and that to carry out a definitive study would require a much more sizeable effort than was feasible at that time. K f\J~o 2. 09 N 7881.01 Robert A. Kehoe, M.D. (Cont'd.) Page 2 July 22, 1970 Of course the results of the blood analyses were freely available to Dr. Keller to use if he felt a useful contribution to the scientific literature could be extracted from them. I had hoped that the lack of any publication over the intervening years reflected Dr. Keller's apprecia tion of the sketchy nature of the available data even if it were bet out in full, but apparently this is not the case. I am glad you have expressed yourself firmly and forcibly on the merits of the paper since a similar expres sion of opinion on my part might be interpreted as an attempt to suppress publication. I am sorry that you have been bothered by this matter and hope that in giving the background to the "study" you will understand my position. With best regards. Sincerely, GJS/rlm G. J. Stppps, M.B., B.S. Assistant Director 0 u U i l u*S fS }'** J f,