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VIII. 
RESPONSES TO COMMENTS ON THE DRAFT EIS 
Introduction 
Notification of the 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. The Draft EIS was published in the Federal~ Register 
of September 9. A partial list of the 2,000 persons and organizations 
to whom it was sent for review is given in Appendix L. Thirty-eight 
letters of response were received and are reproduced in their entirety 
in Appendix K. 
Chapter VIII contains the NIH analysis of these comments and the 
responses to them. While every comment is not addressed separately, 
all of the material issues raised in the comments are covered. 
An index at the beginning of Appendix K identifies each commentator, 
shows the document number of each, and indicates the sections in Chapter 
VIII where responses to the commentator are given. In addition, the 
text of VIII identifies at least one commentator for each response 
(document numbers in brackets). * On the basis of the considerations 
represented in VIII, the text of the EIS has been modified in numerous 
places. 
The organization of the Draft EIS, the first seven chapters of the 
Final EIS, and Chapter VIII of the Final EIS are all identical. 
It should be noted that the comments did not contain any scientific 
evidence relative to risk-assessment which had not already been con- 
sidered during construction of the NIH Guidelines. 
Although all comments were requested for submission by October 18, 
1976, extensions were given to several commentators at their request. 
The receipt of formal comments was continued until December 15. 
A number of the comments in response to the Draft EIS were 
actually addressed to the Guidelines. These were forwarded to the 
Recombinant Advisory Committee and are being considered as changes 
in the Guidelines are contemplated. 
From here on, this chapter follows the organization of the Draft 
Environmental Impact Statement and the preceding chapters. 
^Reference numbers are in parentheses. 
