44 
V. 
DESCRIPTION OF THE ACTION 
A. General Application of the Guidelines 
The Director, National Institutes of Health, has issued Guidelines 
that govern the conduct of NIH-supported research on recombinant DNA 
molecules. The Guidelines apply to all NIH-supported research on 
such molecules --that is, molecules that are made by combining 
segments of DNA from different organisms in a cell-free system and 
that can be inserted into some living cell, there to replicate. The 
objective of the Guidelines is the protection of the laboratory worker, 
the general public, and the environment from infection by possibly 
hazardous agents that may result from this research. The complete 
text of the Guidelines will be found in the Federal Register, Part 
II, for Wednesday, July 7, 1976. The Guidelines are also included 
with the present statement as Appendix D. A review of their provisions 
is given in Appendix E. 
The mechanisms by which NIH will implement the application 
of the Guidelines are outlined in the Guidelines themselves and are 
specified in greater detail in Appendix C of this Environmental Impact 
Statement (EIS). Noncompliance with the Guidelines will result in 
termination of funding of research grants and contracts. 
Two broad classes of experiments are described in the Guidelines 
(Section III). Certain experiments are prohibited. Other experiments 
are permitted but only under defined conditions designed to limit the 
spread of the experimental material. There are important distinctions 
between those classes of experiments that are permitted and those that 
are prohibited. 
Experiments Prohibited by NIH Guidelines. For most recombinant 
DNA experiments, the possibility that hazardous microorganisms will 
be produced is purely conjectural. In some possible experiments, 
however, hazardous organisms would undoubtedly result--for example, 
when the host cells themselves are hazardous. Such experiments 
are prohibited. They include those involving microorganisms known 
to be moderately or highly pathogenic to man, animals, or plants (see 
1 and 3 below), and those involving the transfer of antibiotic -resistance 
traits to microorganisms that do not acquire them naturally, thus 
limiting the options for treatment of diseases caused by those agents 
(see 5 below). 
