97 
1 This totally ignores the question of the rate of recombin- 
2 ation under forced laboratory conditions. The parallel 
3 and equally fallacious argument is because nuclear fission 
4 occurs naturally on earth, regulation of experimentation 
5 can be minimal and exempted by an appointed Washington 
6 official . 
7 Whoever at NIH is accepting the proposed 
8 exemption criteria is adopting a simplistic notion of 
9 reality. 
10 In general, NIH is seeking to relax the safe- 
11 guards imposed on various experiments. Physical contain- 
12 ment is simply not the failsafe system you are being led 
13 to believe. While in St. Paul I personally inspected the 
14 air-handling equipment of more firms and manufacturers 
15 than most people will see in a lifetime. While taking 
18 courses in environmental microbiology, I studied and 
17 performed the sampling for microorganisms in hospitals 
18 and their clean rooms--what they called their clean rooms— 
19 for burn patients and the like. And all of these systems 
20 would fail on occasion. No exceptions. 
21 We have technologists who at the present time 
22 sel f-regulate , and I believe their track record is poor. 
23 The most recent example, Sc ience News reports in the 
24 September 9 , 1978 , issue that a new case of smallpox has 
25 been contracted by a photographer in the Birmingham 
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