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Sir / You cite me as "accusing the multinational oil firms of merely acting as tax-collection agents for the oil exporters." No need to accuse anyone: the board chairman of British Petroleum called the companies tax-collecting agents, and I think rightly. As for any "concerted diplomatic effort to break the OPEC cartel," that cannot happen soon. Our Government, by threatening to pre-empt oil supplies and sponsoring preferential treatment for Saudi Arabian oil, has so scared and embittered our European and Asian friends that they would not listen even if we spoke the truth.
M.A. ADELMAN
Massachusetts Institute of Technology Cambridge, Mass.
Best Practical Technology
Sir / The need for Congress to reconsider the federal law that sets the standards for auto-exhaust emissions [April 23] has been persuasively described by a committee of the National Academy of Science. We endorse that recommendation.
Because of the complexities of the issues, we believe Congress should impose upon the Environmental Protection Agency responsibility for requiring the application of the "best practical" technology as a sound approach to air-quality improvement, and meanwhile back away from involving itself in numbers setting.
The first step toward a more reasoned approach to emission control was taken when the EPA granted a one-year extension of the compliance deadline. However, the administrator was obliged by the act to impose stringent interim standards which may still require the use of wastefully expensive catalyst technology.
H. ROBERT SHARBAUGH
President Sun Oil Co. St. Davids, Pa.
Professional Courtesy
Sir / Your article, "All in the Family" [May 7], gets me where it hurts most!
Ironically, medical professional courtesy is extended mainly to those who can best afford to pay the full fare: physicians and their families.
It has occurred to me that the doctor-related recipients of a doctor's good care should consider "reimbursing"' him by donating a sum equivalent to the customary fee to the doctor's favorite charity.
I trust that my husband, the doctor, will not be too surprised to find that the signature below is that of his wife!
(MRS.) SUSANNE LONDON
Burlington, Vt.
Sir / If a doctor doctors another doctor, does the doctor who doctors the doctor doctor the doctor the way the doctor he is doctoring doctors? Or does the doctor doctor the doctor the way the doctor who doctors doctors doctors?
ROBERT J. LERER, M.D.
New Haven, Conn.