4 
Notice of availability of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement 
appeared in the Federal Register of September 2, 1976, and was 
announced in a press release and in the NIH Guide to Grants and 
Contracts. NIH sent out over 2, 000 copies of the full Draft for review 
following its publication on September 9. A partial list of addressees 
is given in Appendix L. All 38 comments received are reproduced 
in their entirety in Appendix K, and our analytic response to the 
comments appears as Chapter VIII. (The organization of the Draft 
EIS and the Final EIS are identical, except for the addition of Chapter 
VIII and Appendices E thru Q in the latter document. ) 
An index at the beginning of Appendix K lists the 38 commentators 
alphabetically, identifies them, and cites the sections in Chapter VIII 
where our responses to the commentators are given. Similarly, 
Chapter VIII cites (in brackets) documents of commentators addressing 
the point in question. Thus the index to Appendix K (page K--2) serves 
as a bridge between Appendix K and Chapter VIII and between these 
and the body of the EIS (Chapters I thru VII). 
Based on the comments and our response, the text of the EIS has 
been modified in numerous places. If no modification was called for 
in response to a certain comment, this is explained in Chapter VIII. 
If we concluded that the EIS should be modified, this is discussed in 
Chapter VIII and the appropriate modifications have been made in the 
body of the EIS. 
In addition to modifications of the EIS in response to comments 
received, we have also made modifications based on new knowledge and 
developments. The Draft EIS was prepared in the summer of 1976. 
That statement is now being completed in the fall of 1977. During 
this year, many recombinant DNA experiments have been performed 
and much discussion and debate concerning recombinant DNA has taken 
place both in the scientific community and among the public. Some of 
the benefits of the research predicted a year ago --namely, important 
advances in knowledge of basic genetics --have now been realized. On 
the other hand, none of the hypothetical risks has been demonstrated. 
Improved systems for biological containment of recombinant DNA 
have been developed, and extensive data on the properties of these 
systems have been accumulated. The data have been carefully scrutinized 
by the Recombinant Advisory Committee, which has found the systems 
to be extremely safe. They have been so certified by NIH. Medical 
microbiologists have looked closely at the question whether E. coli 
K-12 (the bacterium used in most recombinant DNA experiments) can be 
changed into a pathogen by the insertion of recombinant DNA, and have 
concluded that it is virtually impossible. Among the community of 
experts in this field, presented with these new data, an earlier consensus 
that the NIH Guidelines were very conservative has tended to shift to 
the view that they are now excessively so and therefore unnecessarily 
restrictive (1-7). 
