Page 38 of Attachment E 
Recommendations from March 30, 1978 Richmond-Falkow-Anderson 
Meeting 
To The Working Group on Risk Assessment 
Discussion held March 30, 1978 
E.S. Anderson, M.H. Richmond, S. Falkow 
It was our concensus that we now have available sufficient data in 
man and livestock to show: 
A) the survival of fed E. coli K-12 sublines 
B) the frequency of transfer of a self-transmissible plasmid from 
K-12 to resident gram-negative flora 
C) the frequency of transfer of other R plasmids to the fed 
strain, and 
D) the frequency of mobilization of non-confugative plasmids 
from K-12 to other enteric flora. 
The combined monitoring data of our three laboratories takes into 
account well over three years of combined effort. The monitoring data 
encompassed: 
1) research workers 
2) their families, and 
3) the laboratory environment. 
We are prepared to offer concrete recommendations for monitoring 
the laboratory environment and laboratory personnel. 
It is our recommendation that upon my arrival in Bristol in June 1978, 1 
set out to correlate and analyze the data from our laboratories into a 
single publication. We would submit our results to COGENE by Sep- 
tember 1978 and should be glad to learn whether it is felt further ex- 
perimentation is necessary. 
. . . Our major feeling is that subsequent to our report to COGENE of 
one year ago, we have accumulated sufficient additional data so that it 
is no longer necessary to undertake the wide study that was initially 
envisioned. 
S. FALKOW 
March 31, 1978 
RECOMMENDATIONS FROM THE 
WORKING GROUPTOCOGENE 
Although it is clear from the comments of these experts on infectious 
diseases and plasmid ecology that many data exist which bear on risk 
assessment, much of the information is still of an informal nature, 
having been collected as a by-product of other efforts. The Risk 
Assessment Group welcomes the opportunity to support efforts to 
collect these data in a form which can be published in a scientific 
journal where they will be accessible to other scientific experts and 
laymen. Organization of these data may well reveal one or two points 
which should still be subjected to experimentation, in which case 
support should be given to allow the work to be undertaken without 
delay. 
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