Director, Office of Recombinant DNA Activities 
January 11, 1982 
Page Two 
4) Certain experiments continue, as before, to be prohibited (do 
we really wish to imply that incorporating the gene for botulinus 
toxin into coli or subtil is a minor prank?). 
As an aside, I would like to respond to the section II A 3 a (Federal 
Register, Vol . 46, No. 233, Dec. 4, 1981, p. 59388) of the Annex B 
"Documents Prepared by Working Group on Revision of the Guidelines: 
Evaluation of Risks Associated With Recombinant DNA Research" to Recombinant 
DNA Research; Proposed Revised Guidelines, which cites certain articles 
which I wrote in 1975 and 1976. I am concerned that this section turns 
my argument "upside down." My point was that fertility barriers do 
noriiially exist between species (indeed, this is an important component 
of the definition of a species). These barriers undoubtedly were developed 
primarily to prevent "wasteful matings." But , because of the presence 
of these barriers in existence over hundreds of millions of years, we 
have had no information from which to predict the consequences, good or 
bad, of more-or-less random combinations of genetic material. 
Thank you for the opportunity to comment on these proposed revisions. 
Sincerely yours 
Robert L. Sinsheimer 
Chancellor 
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