14 
MINUTES OF MEETING - June 5-6 
Dr. Gottesman and Dr. Williams reviewed the sumnary of the Pasadena 
meeting prepared by the RAC Risk Assessment Working Group (Attachment 
II), and replied to questions posed by RAC members concerning the 
Pasadena proceedings. Their recommendations to the RAC are given on 
page 5 of Attachment II. 
V. PROPOSED CHANGES OF THE GUIDELINES TO ALLOW RECOMBINANT ENA EXPERIMENTS 
WITH CLASS 3 ORGANISMS AND CERTAIN PLANT PATHOGENS 
Dr. Gottesman summarized the history of the proposal (tab 881/2). She 
said NIAID originally requested consideration of whether, and under what 
conditions, recombinant ENA technology might be used to study CDC Class 
3 etiological agents. The issue was presented to the RAC at its December 
6-7, 1979 meeting and a working group was appointed to study the issue. 
A draft proposal was presented to, and subsequently modified by, the RAC 
at the March 6-7, 1980 meeting. The RAC at that meeting also reviewed 
the question of whether experiments using plant pathogens should be re- 
moved from the prohibitions. It was noted that the mechanism for remov- 
ing Class 3 agents from the prohibitions could be employed to remove 
plant pathogens from the prohibitions. The committee requested that 
language removing plant pathogens and Class 3 agents from the prohibi- 
tions be combined and published in the Federal Register for comment. 
Dr. Gottesman said the language, published in the April 30, 1980, Federal 
Register , would remove Class 3 pathogens from prohibition I-D-l and 
permit them to be used under P3 containment conditions with Escherichia 
coli K-12 hosts. Containment levels for other experiments would be 
assigned by the Director, NIH, after review by the RAC. 
Dr. Young suggested that the proposed language of Section IV-E-l-b-( 2)-(e) 
be clarified. Dr. Baltimore proposed the following language: 
" IV-E-l-b- ( 2 ) - ( e ) . Assigning containment levels for experiments 
with recombinant DNA from Class 3 organisms [1] and assigning 
containment levels for experiments which increase the host-range 
and virulence of plant pathogens." 
Dr. Zaitlin asked if there was any rationale for excluding the clause 
"beyond that which occurs by natural genetic exchange" from Section IV-E- 
l-b-(2)-(e) and Section III but including the phrase in Section I-E. 
Dr. Nightingale suggested that the language of Sections III and IV-E-1- 
b-(2)-(e) be modified to be consistent with Section I-E, i.e., add after 
"plant pathogens," the phrase "beyond that which occurs by natural genetic 
exchange." 
Dr. Walters questioned how the preposed amendment would alter Section I-D; 
he asked if Section I-D-4 would became I-D- 3, Section I-D-5 become I-D-4, 
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