UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, SAN DIEGO 
BERKELEY • DAVIS • IRVINE • LOS ANCELES • RIVERSIDE • SAN DIECO • SAN FRANCISCO 
SANTA BARBARA • SANTA CRUZ 
DEPARTMENT OF BIOLOGY, B-022 
LA JOLLA, CALIFORNIA 92093 
19 December 1979 
Dr. Donald Fredrickson, Director 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, Maryland 20205 
Dear Dr. Fredrickson: 
I have reviewed the proposal for the change in the guidelines 
for recombinant DNA and concur with the majority of opinion that 
the guidelines should be lowered. I feel that this is appropriate 
for scientific reasons in that it poses no potential health hazard 
to the public and members of the scientific community working with 
this material. In addition, I feel that it will be a major boost 
for biomedical research as lowering of the guidelines will allow 
laboratory work to proceed more efficiently resulting in more progess 
in a shorter period of time. Moreover, lowering of restrictions with 
the concomitant decreased stringency of the working conditions will 
result in saving research dollars enabling more experimentation for 
the same research funds. In the long run, this means higher produc- 
tivity for the same tax dollar. I feel that these are important 
considerations . 
As a research biologist, I feel that the new guidelines do 
represent sufficiently rigorous control of experiments which I con- 
sider potentially hazardous to the public and I therefore feel, after 
taking all facts into consideration, that it is extremely important 
for the progress of biomedical research that the new guidelines be 
approved. 
Sinrprpl v unurs 
RAF : dw 
RICHARD A. FIRTEL, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor of Biology 
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