17 
this includes the right to take action against those employers 
who are found to be out of compliance. However, to date OSHA has 
taken no further action. 
3. Center for Disease Control (CPC) : CDC has been indirectly 
involved in the development of the NIH Guidelines through its 
list of pathogenic agents, issued by the Center for Infectious 
Diseases, which classifies the agents according to their 
toxicity. The NIH RAC relied heavily on this list (and continues 
to do so) in its assignment of various rDNA experiments to 
various physical and biological containment levels and in its 
designation of experiments that require the explicit approval of 
the NIH. The more dangerous the microorganism (according to the 
CDC classif ications) , the higher the physical and biological con- 
tainment levels assigned by the RAC. 
The CDC has also issued draft "Biosafety Guidelines for 
Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories." As stated in the 
introduction of these Guidelines, "The primary purpose of these 
proposed CDC B' jsafety Guidelines is to provide recommendations 
for the safe handling of microorganisms that are known to cause 
or may cause human disease." The minimal recommendations of the 
CDC Biosafety Guidelines are applicable to training, clinical, 
diagnostic, research, and other laboratory activities in which 
viable microorganisms or clinical materials that are known to 
contain or may contain agents infectious for humans are handled 
[618] 
