2. BIOLOGICAL CONTAINMENT 
Similarly the very brief discussion on p. 52-53 
mentioning the ideal use of a strain of bacteria that could not 
survive outside of the laboratory and an eaually brief mention 
on p. 36 do not in any sense serve as a real discussion or the 
important area of biological containment. The larger question 
of whether or not there can ever be any biological containment 
is never addressed. Even if disabled strain were developed, 
we could never be sure of its safety, for by definition a 
recombinant experiment would add new traits to the disabled strain 
which might cancel out its disability. The DEIS presents a good 
example of just this phenomenon. On pp. 22-23 it presents the 
experiment in which a histidine deficient E. coli (a disarmed 
host) lost its disability when recombined with yeast DNA. Since 
after recombination a new organism is developed, the premise of 
biological containment is possibly an invalid one. 
Other problems with biological containment which 
should have been discussed include the possibility that the 
biologically enfeebled host organisms could spontaneously 
revert to a wild type organism, or could survive and propagate 
by otherwise circumventing the disa±>ling characteristics forced 
upon it. The possibility also exists, never addressed in the 
DEIS, that becuase the crippled organism will grow more slowly 
due to its disability a contaminant might fall into the culture 
and grow at a faster rate than the diseibled organism. 
Thus, the researcher will unknowingly end up with a 
culture not of the disabled host but of a wholly different 
-17- 
Appendix K — 97 
