MEDICAL CENTER 
Department of Molecular Genetics 
Telephone: (617) 356-2292 
and Microbiology 
55 Lake Avenue North 
January 22 , 1982 
William J. Gartland, Jr., Ph.D. 
Director, Office of Recombinant DMA Activities 
Department of Health & Human Services 
National Institutes of Health 
Bethesda, Maryland 20205 
Dear Dr. Gartland: 
I am writing to support the proposal of the recombinant DNA advisory 
committee to modify the NIH guidelines so they would become a voluntary 
code of standard practice. I strongly urge that this proposal be adopted 
rather than the alternative proposal which appears as Item 7 In the 
Federal Register Notice of December 7, 1981. In 1974, a group of 
scientists set a precedent by asking that the consequences of a proposed 
experimental procedure be evaluated before experiments were conducted. 
The evaluation of these procedures has perhaps been more acrimonious thati 
we might have hoped, but the process of evaluation has been an open one 
and has Involved the collaboration of public, scientific and legislative 
bodies. Let us now set a new precedent. Now that we are convinced that 
the experiments present no legitimate danger to the public or to 
ourselves, let us dismantle a regulatory apparatus which Is no longer 
necessary. 
Sincerely yours 
Lydia Vllla-Komaroff, Ph.D 
Assistant Professor 
[6881 
