concern for historians. It is now clear such optimism was premature. While 
smallpox may have been confined to labs, mostly for archival purposes, the threat 
to public health was not entirely eliminated. 
The virus in England escaped through a "faulty filter," and contaminated 
workers in and around a laboratory at Birmingham University. A medical photo- 
grapher fell victim to this virus and died. The director of the lab committed 
suicide. The threat from this outbreak even spread to the U.S. when an individual 
exposed in England flew to North Dakota. 
This episode with smallpox parallels and highlights several concerns about 
research in the area of genetic manipulation: 
1. ) Labs cannot provide foolproof containment of dangerous organisms; 
2. ) Biohazard outbreak, unlike any other type of threat, can rapidly 
spread to virtually any neighborhood on earth; 
3. ) The more over-optimistic the picture painted by the scientific 
community, the more vulnerable the public is to health disasters, 
especially from unprecedented, genetical ly-hybrid forms, against 
which nature may have evolved no immune mechanisms. 
I realize that stringent safeguards on this type of research may be expen- 
sive and/or have an inhibiting effect on the progress of research. But we treat 
the threats casually, at our own peril. 
HEW must now act, and I would urge that you do so under Section 361 of the 
Public Health Service Act. It may not be the perfect instrument, but at least it 
provides some authority for action. I do wish I could assure you that the Congress 
would quickly provide you more precise authority, but I cannot. Even ff we 
were to act early next year, and that's doubtful, it would take an additional year 
to prepare regulations. 
We cannot afford to wait any longer. Imperfect as the world is and as 
Section 361 is, waiting is going to make matters much worse. 
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