Efforts by distinguished biomedical scientists to press Congress to provide increased funding were portrayed in a recent article1 as having originated in 1990 or thereabouts. This article, though accurate about the past decade of these important and highly successful endeavors, failed to note the key precursor: the Delegation for Basic Biomedical Research, formed in 1977. The members of this group were selected by its founder, Mahlon Hoagland of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology,

I wish to add a perspective to the good account by Kathryn S. Brown of how K-12 science education efforts are being aided by some pharmaceutical companies ("Corporate Programs Bolster Hands-on Science In Schools," The Scientist, Sept. 1, 1997, page 1). In May 1994, the Worcester Foundation's then four-year-old K-12 science education program was visited by Bruce Alberts, president of the National Academy of Sciences, and Gertrude Elion, scientist emeritus at Glaxo Wellcome Co. To an overflow aud