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1 It was academic research that gave birth to 
2 recombinant DNA techniques, and the academic research 
3 community, primarily under the aegis of NIH, has been 
4 the first to exploit the techniques as well as to recog- 
5 nize their possible risks. But recent syntheses 
6 of both the growth hormone and insulin, and the rapid 
7 emergence of industrial interest, show that academic 
8 research will not have the field to itself much longer. 
9 New problems are about to arise, resulting from the 
10 near impossibility of preventing the unwitting release 
11 into the environment of recombinant organisms when they 
12 are produced on a large scale for drug manufacture. 
13 There are also problems of predicting all 
14 the environmental consequences that may result from the 
15 intentional release of large quantities of genetically 
16 engineered organisms, such as oil-eating bacteria and 
17 nitrogen-fixing plants. 
18 But the regulation of industrial application 
19 is outside the scope of NIH, and the evaluation of the 
20 public stakes in the application of this new technology 
21 is beyond the competence of research biologists, who make 
22 up most of the membership of the advisory committees. 
23 Societal priorities, ethical questions and non-scientif ic 
24 judgments are going to be involved, and if the authority 
25 is not broadened and the decisions are not very 
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