10 
Lapp& 
molecules have the Sorcerer apprentice-like capacity for un- 
limited proliferation. For DNA recombinant experiments, the only 
appropriate moral restraint is prior restraint. Unfortunately, we 
will not know if the stove is hot until we have tested it. 
Perhaps the most chilling realization is that for all of 
its own care in these deliberations, the NIH guidelines provide no 
guidance or sanctions against any private sector use. And that is 
where all of our trouble with this new technology is likely to come. 
It doesn't help to have the National Institutes of Health so praise 
the as yet unrealized advantages of this technology that any reason- 
able profit-motivated corporation would be foolish not to rush to 
the laboratory bench. As long as public funds are not involved, 
the Pandora's box of biohazards has now been effectively thrown 
open. VJhat is needed is a federal proscription of research in 
any sector of the economy which does not meet the most stringent 
guidelines — and which has demonstrated scientific or public goods 
to offer a public which has freely assented to its exposure to the 
risks necessarily entailed. 
In recombinant DNA research, as In more circumscribed research 
generally , the principle of providing a consensual mechanism to 
afford any at-risk subjects a full description of the benefits, 
hazards and alternatives to a particular line of Inquiry is sacro- 
sanct. Not to provide that mechanism, nor to allow refusal of 
Appendix K — 19 
