In the Biological Anthropology Section
 News of the January 1996 AN (p 21), con-
 tributing editor Jonathan Marks commented
 on a symposium organized by Joan Fujimu-
 ra held last November at Stanford and on
 his talk at that symposium.  In his talk he
 was very critical of the Human Genome
 Diversity Project (HGDP); his written corn-
 ments in the AN are also critical of the
 HGDP and its organizers.  Both at the meet-
 ing at Stanford and in the AN, he made a
 statement about the history and organiza-
 tion of the HGDP that was factually incor-
 rect; I wish to set the record straight.
   Marks's written statement was -- "Anthro-
 pologists were added [to the HGDP] only as
 an afterthought, with the promise of a ride
 on the gravy train -- and the field has not
 been able to influence the fundamental poli-
 cies of the HGDP substantially." Nothing
 could be further from the truth.  First, 4 of
 the 5 individuals who were coinvestigators
 on the original NSF grant application to
 fund planning and organizational meetings
 were anthropologists: Ken Weiss was chair-
 man of the Anthropology Department at
 Penn State at the time and is currently pres-
 ident of the Biological Anthropology Sec-
 tion of AAA; by any objective critcria-
 publications, academic appointments, train-
 ing of students, society memberships-
 most people would agree that Luca Cavalli-
 Sforza, Mary Clair King and I are anthro-
 pologists.  Second, other anthropologists
 were consulted informally before the appli-
 cation was written and their thoughts were
 part of the input into the proposal.  That
 grant application requested funding for 3
 meetings -- population genetics issues,
 social and cultural anthropological issues
 and organizational issues.  Ethical issues
 were to be dealt with in the last 2 of those
 meetings but at the request of NIH and NSF
 a fourth meeting specifically on ethical
 issues was added later.  The population
 genetics meeting was planned to deal more
 with statistical power, sample sizes and
 such more abstract aspects of research
 design.
   Clearly the application was written with
 "anthropological" and ethical issues in
 mind, and anthropologists of several types
 were identified in the application as poten-
 tial participants in those planning meetings.
 That application was submitted to NSF and
 reviewed by the Anthropology section.  Sev-
 eral outside anthropologists were asked by
 NSF to review it, and their opinions were
 part of the basis for NSF's decision to fund
 the proposal.  The planning meetings pro-
 posed in the application were held, and
 anthropologists were prominent participants
 in each.  The major criticisms of the project,
 in my opinion mostly based on misinforma-
 tion, actually started after the second meet-
 ing, which involved primarily anthropolo-
 gists.
   The HGDP is still in a planning phase
 and my thoughts about how the project
 should be organized have certainly evolved.
 The evolution of my thinking is largely the
 result of interaction over the past several
 years with a variety of anthropology col-
 leagues; I am sure the same is true for the
 opinions of my colleagues who are working
 hard to organize an ethical and scientifical-
 ly exciting project.

                             Kenneth K Kidd
                              Yale University