“Hypothetical Risk: Cambridge City Council’s Hearings on Recombinant DNA Research” (1976)

The film “Hypothetical Risk. The Cambridge City Council’s hearings on DNA Experimentation in Cambridge” was recorded in June 1976 at City Hall in Cambridge, MA. Mayor Alfred Vellucci and city councillors Saundra Graham and David Clem are among those to question a panel of scientists including Mark Ptashne (Harvard), Jonathan King (MIT), Daniel Branton (Harvard), Maxine Singer (National Institute of Health), and Ruth Hubbard (Harvard). Produced by the MIT Oral History Program for the Recombinant DNA History Project in 1978. For a historical analysis of this isue, see John Durant’s chapter in D. Kaiser, ed., “Becoming M.I.T.” (2010, MIT Press).