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led, through a rather torturous path, to this hearing 
today. However, I an here to celebrate the revision 
of the guidelines and not these hearings. I can't 
speak for Berg et al., but I do believe that when we 
discussed the power of the new recombinant DMA tech- 
niques and its potential biohazards, we turned to 
what we knew would oe most effective — peer review. 
We envisaged and then initiated a process whereby 
there would be continuous expert peer review of the 
procedures needed to perform these experiments 
safely. The revision we are discussing today is in 
part the result of such a process. 
When v/e asked the NIH to prepare the first 
set of guidelines, it was not — and I repeat -- it 
was not because the NIH was a granting agency with 
latent regulatory authority over federal grantees. 
It was because NIH has the primary responsibility for 
biomedical research in this country, and access to the 
expertise needed to perform the ongoing assessments. 
We almost asked the N3F. And I chink Don Fredrickson 
would probably have been happy. 
( Laughter . ) 
It was to be a voluntary system that applied 
to everybody, accepted by all because it was the rational 
way to proceed. The new provision in the PRG concerning 
[162] 
