The Honorable Patricia Roberts Harris 
December 30, 1979 
Page Six 
If the NIH has neither the expertise nor the desire to 
assure compliance with its guidelines, it is clearly a mistake 
for it to initiate a system of control for the private sector, 
voluntary or otherwise. 
Some now confidently assert that controls are unnecessary 
because the potential hazards of this field are minuscule (a view 
which contrasts with those widely held a few years ago) . It is 
well to bear in mind how often similar statements with regard 
to the hazards of other fields of science and technology have 
proved to be mistaken, and at what cost to those affected. Until 
the implications of the recombinant DNA field are clear, a 
prudent course would be to develop uniform mandatory controls 
in order to provide a public record of recombinant DNA activities 
and to assure compliance with federal standards. 
The need for controls to cover recombinant DNA activities 
in the private sector has been recognized for some time.*This 
has always been a major problem with the scope of the NIH guide- 
lines. As you know, Senator Adlai Stevenson is proposing to intro- 
duce legislation to meet this need. I hope that his efforts will 
receive your strong support. 
2 enclosures 
^Senator Edward Kennedy and Senator Jacob Javits to President 
Gerald Ford, July 19, 1976. (Repr. in DHEW, Recombinant DNA Research 
(March, 1978), II, pp. 158-60.) 
Oversight Report of the Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and 
Space, Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, U.S. 
Senate, August 1978, p.vii. 
National Institutes of Health , "Environmental Impact Assessment of 
a Proposal to Release Revised NIH Guidelines for Research Involving 
Recombinant DNA Molecules," Federal Register 43 (28 July 1978), 33098. 
This document states that "pending legislation introduced in 1978 
provides the most promising solution yet available for establishing 
national standards for the use of recombinant DNA techniques." The 
legislation referred to, H.R. 11192, was not passed. 
Lecturer in the History 
of Science 
[ 630 ] 
