misinformed of the ultimate dangers of the research. 
For excimple: 
1) The EIS states that the "recombinant might compete 
successfully against organisms active to the niche . . . Also 
if the native organism were performing beneficial functions, 
those functions could be lost upon the successful establishment 
of the recombinant in the niche." (p.20) The full impact of this 
statement could well be lost on the reader unfcimiliar with the 
concepts of ecological competition emd selection. The true 
implication is that a recombinant organism could totally upset 
our finely tuned ecological balance resulting in a decreased 
agricultural diversity or perhaps even a mono-agricultural 
ecology atotal change in food sources and therefore food 
chains with a resultauit cheinge in cinimal diversity and animal 
survival. Another implication of this could be the emergence 
of a toxic or pathogenic orgemism with an expanded ecological 
niche enaibling it to proliferate in an novel way and cause 
widespread disease. 
2) The EIS states that increased survival may be 
conferred to a recombineuit by the existence of an R-f actor. (p.20) 
Said otherwise and without understatement, it mecms that a disease 
currently auneneible to medical treatment could be made resistant 
to antibiotics emd thereby inexorable. The statement continues: 
"Such natural events are in fact responsible for the rapid cuid 
wide spread of resistance to clinically important drugs that 
has been observed during the last 20 years." (p. 20) The fact 
is that the widespread resistance of some pathogens to 
antibiotics which has been inadvertantly selected for by the 
- 8 - 
Appendix K — 88 
