Document 23 
DEPARTMENT OF STATE 
Washington, D.C. 20520 
BUREAU OF OCEANS AND INTERNATIONAL 
ENVIRONMENTAL AND SCIENTIFIC AFFAIRS 
October 27, 1976 
Dr. Charles Custard 
Director 
Office of Environmental Affairs 
Office of the Secretary 
Department of Health, Education 
and Welfare 
Washington, D.C. 20201 
Dear Dr, Custard: 
The Department of State appreciates the opportunity 
provided by your letter of September 2, 1976, with enclosures, 
to comment on the draft environmental impact statement con- 
cerning the Guidelines for Research Involving Recombinant 
DNA Molecules, developed by the National Institutes of Health. 
From a foreign policy standpoint we see no reason to object 
to the Guidelines and the attached draft environmental impact 
statement. However we would emphasize the continuing necessity 
of taking into account the potentially global consequences of 
research on recombinant DNA molecules. 
All the more imperative then, in our view, is the need 
for maintaining close U.S. consultation with foreign scientists, 
international scientific bodies and other appropriate inter- 
national organizations to ensure that guidelines, both our own 
and those of others, developed in this field are fully adequate 
and are kept under review. 
As you know, the United States already has made the Guide- 
lines available through Embassy and other channels to those 
individuals known over the world to be working in this general 
area. Also, through the U.S. Embassies, the report has been 
made available to a number of ministries of health in other 
countries. Some countries — the United Kingdom, Canada and 
Australia — have promulgated their own guidelines; I understand 
that NIH has checked these guidelines to see that, in essence, 
they are consistent with our own. 
Appendix K — 116 
